This weekend our pastor is preaching at all the Masses for the Bishop’s annual Lenten appeal – so I have a homiletic homily (so to speak). I thought it might be good to provide some context for this very somber and sobering first reading from the Book of Job. Take a moment and read the first two chapters of Job. It should only take you a few minutes.

The story of Job is the well-known biblical account in which a person’s life goes from prosperity and security, from joy to despair – and Job is the one who asks aloud what some of us only whisper – where is God in all of this? Job watches while his life unravels, losing prosperity, family and feeling that the entirety of his life is under assault. He has looked into his life and his heart, searching for his sin, then at least he imagines he can reconcile what has happened to him. But he is a blameless and upright man. And that is not just his own self assessment, this is how God describes Job: “There is no one on earth like him, blameless and upright, fearing God and avoiding evil.” (Job 1:8) In the first chapter we are also shown examples of his extreme piety. He loves God and his family so much, he offers sacrifices for his children (Job 1:2-7) just in case they might have sinned. He is a good man who loves God, family, and his neighbors.

All of a sudden, we’re transported to the heavenly throne-room, where God seems to be receiving daily reports from “sons of God” who apparently are tasked with “Roaming the earth and patrolling it.” (Job 1:7). There is one standing among them referred to as “the satan.” The pastor and biblical scholar, Tim Mackie points out:

Now let’s stop here: who or what is “the satan?” Let’s first set the record straight, this word is not a proper name, like our modern translations that use the capital letter (“Satan”) might lead us to conclude. The Hebrew word satan is a descriptive noun, describing any person that stands “opposed to” or as “an adversary” to someone else. For example, King Solomon faced multiple invading enemies near the end of his reign, Hadad the Edomite and Rezon, son of Eliada (1 Kings 11:14, 11:23). Both of these men are called in Hebrew “a satan,” that is, an adversary. King David himself is called “a satan” by the Philistines (1 Samuel 29:4). The word “satan” can be used to describe an accusing attorney in a courtroom (see Ps 109:6-7). And pay attention to this one, “the angel of the Lord” is described as “a satan,” who opposes the infamous Balaam (see Num 22:22, 32). So even the angelic messenger who represents the will and authority of God himself can take on the function of a satan. One conclusion from this short Hebrew word study is that a variety of people or heavenly beings can be described by the word satan. This means that the satan who appears in Job 1-2 is not necessarily identical with the full-orbed evil being called by that same title in the New Testament (see, for example, Mark 1:13).

Why do I point out this distinction? Because it is meant to set the stage for how we understand the entire Book of Job.  When God presents Job as upright and blameless, the satan raises the possibility that Job’s good behavior could be explained in a very different way (Job 1:8-9). Isn’t it possible that Job’s seemingly virtuous behavior is motivated by a self-serving motivation? If Job knows that good behavior brings divine blessing and abundance, then he could have all kinds of motivation for being “blameless and upright.” If true, then Job’s goodness isn’t really that good, and even more importantly, it calls into question God’s basic policy of rewarding those who honor and follow him: “Is it for nothing that Job is God-fearing?”  This question gives the book an interesting twist, for while we might be inclined (along with Job and his friends) to spend time asking why righteous people suffer, the satan turns the question upside down and asks why they prosper and does it have anything to do with their blamelessness.

The book of Job is ancient Israelite wisdom literature, and its purpose isn’t to teach us about how Satan and God make bets and leave innocent people’s fates hanging in the balance. The opening scene is just a “setup” to frame a much bigger question than “why do good people suffer.” All the chapters and chapters of dialogue are to raise questions about how God runs the universe. Again, from Tim Mackie:

A helpful way of understanding the book of Job was offered by a Jewish scholar named Matisyahu Tsevat. He proposed that the book is exploring three claims made about God and Job, but only two can be true at the same time.

• God is Just and Good: God’s character compels him to always act justly for the good of others
• The Retribution Principle: God has ordered the world so that good deeds are rewarded, and evil deeds are punished
• Job’s Innocence: Job has done nothing to deserve his suffering

The whole argument of Job’s friends is that

• God is just and good, by which they mean that
• God has ordered the moral universe to run by the retribution principle.

On this account, Job’s suffering must, therefore, be the result of some evil for which he’s being punished.

Job’s argument is that

• He has done nothing wrong to warrant this suffering as a punishment.
• That God runs the world by means of the retribution principle, which leads him to the brink of an awful conclusion. Maybe God is not just or good, or, even worse, maybe God is incompetent at running the universe.

What follows is like the movie “Groundhog Day.” Job and his friends spent the next 24 chapters  going round and round on the same basic topic with changes each time around the loop. Our first reading is from chapter 7 and he is already lamenting: “My days … come to an end without hope. …. I shall not see happiness again.”

The first reading is Job’s very emotional response to “round 1” with Eliphaz, one of his friends. Long story short, Eliphaz made four basic points — what innocent person perishes? (Job 4:7); can mortals be blameless against their maker? (4:17); humans themselves beget mischief (5:7); happy those whom God reproves (5:17) — Eliphaz concludes his opening remarks (v. 27) with a ringing appeal to experience: “See, this we have searched out; so it is! This we have heard, and you should know!”  In other words, “Job you need to figure out your sin because you are not blameless!” Of course, God has already testified that Job is in fact blameless.

As already noted, there are 24 chapters of dialogue as Job and the friends try to hash out how the cosmos works. Eventually, Job and his friends have nothing to say to each other anymore, and Job takes up his final position before God in chapters 29-31. He laments the days of his past when his body was healthy and his life filled with family and friends (Job 29:1-11). His present suffering is no longer endurable (Job 30:24-31), and he demands that God provide an explanation (Job 31:35-37).

And God says…. Well, that is the topic of some future blog post. But I will offer God’s opening words to Job in a dialogue that spans five chapters: “Then the LORD answered Job…Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.” (Job 38:1,4)  Understanding is the goal of wisdom literature.

Image credit: BibleProject, Book of Job, CC-BY