Job

Job was not a part of the patriarchs, the chosen line, nor was he a Jew, thus he was not a part of Israel or its blessings. However, Job is included here in order to make the point that one who has faith can still be included in the kingdom of Yahweh—even if they are not a part of the chosen line. Job’s life also speaks to the nature of evil and suffering in the world.

There are two questions that the book of Job addresses:

• Why do people suffer?
• How will people react when it seems that Yahweh does not care or is not able to help?

The reader is informed of three things that Job and his friends do not know: that Satan was the cause of the suffering (Job 1:9-12), that Job and his friends believed Yahweh is behind all things, and that Job was a righteous man (Job 1:1, 8).

When Job began to suffer, he denied that Yahweh was just in causing him to suffer because Yahweh and he both knew that he was righteous. In this he denied Yahweh’s goodness and trustworthiness, although he never denied Yahweh. This is hard to understand because this denial of Yahweh’s goodness and justness seems like a denial of Yahweh Himself, yet Yahweh says otherwise (Job 2:3). None of us has a perfect understanding of Yahweh and or a perfectly correct theology, yet we would still consider ourselves to have faith in Him.

Jobs friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, denied that Job was righteous because Yahweh is just and because he causes all things, and so there must have been some secret sin that Job had not confessed. Yet the narrator already made it clear that this was not true. Job’s fourth friend, Elihu the younger, declared both parties to be wrong. He claimed that both Yahweh and Job were righteous and just, but that Yahweh is not the cause of all things. This is the view that the narrator shares.

In the end Yahweh shows up to rebuke Job for his bad theology (Job. 40:8). Here He asks Job two questions:

• Where were you when I created the world? (Job 38:1-39:30)
• Can you contend with evil (leviathan) in the world? (Job 40:1-41:34)

Many people believe that the discussion of the leviathan in Job 41 refers to a dinosaur, but there is so much more to it than that. Though it is true that leviathans and dinosaurs existed during the time of Job and after, the leviathan in the ancient Near East and in the Bible was used as a symbol of evil and chaos (Ps. 89:8-13; Isa. 27:1; 74:14-17; Rev. 20:1-2, 10). It is clear that the leviathan here is more than a dinosaur when Yahweh makes it clear that no one can stand against the leviathan except him (Job 41:7-11). This has to be Satan because there is no animal that humanity cannot kill. Yahweh goes on to describe the leviathan as one who is without fear and is king over all that are proud (Job 41:33-34). This is only true of Satan for there is no animal without fear nor who would be considered king over all that are proud. The point of Yahweh’s discussion of the leviathan is that only Yahweh, and no man, is capable of defeating the leviathan (Job 40:14). This is not true of a dinosaur, which could be defeated by man, but it is true of Satan. The book begins with Satan causing suffering and ends with Yahweh addressing with Job the issue of Satan. Job received Yahweh’s rebuke and is humbled (Job 42:1-6).

In the end Yahweh never really answers the question of why there is evil. However, by the fact that Yahweh rebukes Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar for their views but not Elihu shows that Elihu’s view is the one that He agrees with (Job 42:7-9). Yahweh declares that He does not cause evil and that how He deals with evil is way beyond our understanding—we would never be able to contend with it on our own. Yahweh is supreme, good, and just.