Part 1: Comedy of Job
What is a comedy?
According to the Ancient Greeks, a comedy was fundamentally a play with a happy ending. This contrasts to a tragedy, where the story ends in disaster.
Bizzarily, using this definition, the story of the suffering Job is actually a comedy.
Job starts off prosperous. Satan challenges God to withdraw His protection of Job and then Satan brings all he can do to force Job to curse God.
Job then goes through a horrendous time, but eventually God restores everything back to him and much more. This happy ending means this story is a comedy. Even a ‘divine’ comedy.
Who is Job?
Job, according to the Septuagint (the 3rd Century BC translation of the Old Testament), was from the border area between Edom and Arabia. He was likely an Edomite. A descendent of Abraham through Esau. This would make Job a gentile in the eyes of the Israelites. Little is known about the Edomite religion, but as Esau was Jacob’s brother, it would be a reasonable assumption that Job would believe in Yahweh.
Why does God allow Job’s suffering?
This is heavily contested. It is used by some to prove that God is vindictive, unloving and evil. Others, to say that Job brought it on himself.
My thought is that God wanted to reveal Himself to Job in a deeper way. Sometimes, when we need to move on with God, He will allow us to go through a time of testing; a fire in order to purify us.
Job learns several vital lesson through this experience.
We have to trust God in all circumstances.
God’s plans override our own plans.
And when God restores, it is more than we have had before.
Was Satan tricked?
Satan thought Job would curse God and die. Destruction of God’s creation is Satan’s ultimate goal. However, God knows the beginning from the end. He knew Job would not curse Him. And He knew that through this episode, Job would trust God more. Satan failed to understand this and was used by God to further His own plans. Satan was a pawn in God’s game and he didn’t even realise it.
The story of Job may not be side-splittingly hilarious, but it is still a comedy. Job’s happy ending meant that all was restored to him, beyond all he could have hoped and his relationship with God was stronger and deeper.
Remember, as Christians, similar to Job, our lives are comedies, not tragedies.
Part 2: Satan In Heaven
In the beginning of the Book of Job, we get a brief description of the protagonist. Then the scene jumps to Heaven, where God asks the ‘sons of God’ to present themselves.
Firstly, who are these ‘sons of God’ in the Old Testament? This is a heavenly title and means the head angels or the arch-angels. It is likely they were presenting themselves to obtain instructions from Him.
If Satan was cast down from Heaven, how could he be allowed back in?
This is a question which Church theologians have been discussing for centuries.
One current view is that at this time in Biblical history, ‘The Satan’ was an official position amongst the ‘sons of God’. His role was to find people on Earth to accuse of sinful practices and report back to God. After all, ‘The Satan’ means the accuser.
It was only in the New Testament that the Devil and Satan were combined into one persona.
The other way of looking at this is to say that Satan and the Devil have always been one and the same.
If this is the case, it could be God allowed the Devil to enter Heaven for His own purposes.
In my previous post, I suggested God’s plan was to deepen His relationship with Job. By talking with and tricking the Devil, he caused him to focus on Job, which brought about God’s will.
I have heard other theories too about how this could have happened.
But what I find interesting about the two solutions I detail above, is they represent two ways of reading the Bible. We can read it as a progressive revelation of God throughout the history of the Scriptures. Or we can look at the Bible as one complete narrative.
I personally believe both can be correct at the same time. We do get this element of progressive revelation in the Bible, but we also find Biblical truths consistent across the text.
Jesus is physically revealed in the Gospels (progressive revelation), but it is clear that He is also present and acting as the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament.
The Bible is both progressively revealing God’s plan for salvation and at the same time offers the gift of salvation from Genesis onwards.
Gen 15 v 6
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Romans 4 v 3
What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Having said all of this, we can’t be 100% sure why Satan was allowed into Heaven. It is one of those Biblical mysteries along with the identification and history of Cain’s wife.
Like Job, we need to trust God and His plans. After all, His ways are not our ways.
Part 3: God, Job and Leviathan
Near the end of Job there is description of a beast called leviathan.
Leviathan is described in Chapter 41 as having:
Fearsome teeth
A back of shield like scales
Flames from its mouth
Glowing red eyes
Smoke rising from its nostrils
A tough hide which can resist weapons
A rough under belly
The ability to stir up the sea like a boiling cauldron
Looking at this description, several commentators have suggested that leviathan is a crocodile or a whale. However, I would propose it sounds more like the chaos beasts of legend.
There are several of these beasts; Tiamet from Babylonian myth, Lotan from the Canaanites and Illuyanka from the Hittites. In all these examples, the beast is defeated after a lengthy battle with a god.
What is different with Yahweh is he does not fight leviathan. He does not even try to defeat it. But instead, He commands leviathan. In Psalm 104 v 25, he allows leviathan to play and frolic in the sea. I have heard of a translation which suggests He interacts with the beast like someone playing with a pet cat.
So why did God bring up Leviathan to Job?
He wanted to show Job that even though he might domesticate, hunt and kill other animals, he is not God and cannot rule over leviathan.
Job’s response is to recognise his limitations. He acknowledges how God can do all things, His purposes cannot be thwarted and the only correct response to God is submission and repentance.
Sometimes in our lives, we may feel leviathan is ploughing over us. Ask God for help, trust in Him and God will command leviathan to leave.
Part 4: Astrology in the Book of Job
Ancient astrology isn’t the same as the modern version. The astrology we see in the daily newspapers today was developed in the late 1800s and focusses on predicting the future for individuals, even predicting the outcome of a single day.
Ancient astrology has a more rational basis.
Firstly, what does the Bible say?
Gen 1 v 14
And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years”
God’s plan was for humanity to use the stars and planets for signs, season, days and years. God wanted people to use them to help record time.
So how did the ancients record time?
Every day could be marked by the sunrise and sunset. Every month could be recorded by the new Moon. Every year could be recorded by the Sun returning to the same point on the horizon. But what about more than a generation?
They would then use the planets and the stars. It takes 29 years for Saturn to orbit the Sun and return back to the same constellation in the sky.
Ancient cultures believed in circular time as opposed to our modern understanding of linear time, where time has an origin point, travels in a straight line and never repeats.
Circular time can be best explained in Ecclesiastes.
Ecc 1 v 9-10
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.
If we understand that time repeats, then the stars and planets would help the ancients to know when is the best time to sow and the best time to harvest.
But even more so, when a rising empire would likely fall. When a great king would be born. When a war would be best fought. And when a famine might strike the land.
Everything in history, follows the same pattern and repeats. Birth precedes maturity, maturity precedes decline and then falls into death.
A modern parallel to this could be geo-political analysis. This uses the historical record to understand the future interactions between politics and geography.
But what is God’s concern about ancient astrology?
Deuteronomy 4 v 19
And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven
God warned against people worshipping the stars as though they were gods. He was concerned they would put their trust in the movement of these heavenly bodies, rather than trust and rely on Him.
By 350 BC, the ancients around the Mediterranean started using astrologers to predict the future for individuals. This was clearly outside of God’s plan.
We can see Paul encountered an astrologer in Act 13 v 6. Here Paul tells him:
Acts 13 v 10
You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery.
So what about Job?
Job 38 v 31
“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?”
God wanted Job to understand that only He sets out the path of the stars and planets. Only He leads events according to His Wisdom. Only He defines the past, the present and what the future unfolds.
Only He rules time.
Part 5: And the Building Collapsed
In Job 1 v 18-19, we read that his sons and daughters were killed when a building fell on them.
While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
The impression is they were having a raucous party. This was probably a regular event as Job is recorded giving sacrifices for his children, because of their behaviour (Job 1 v 5).
There are some interesting parallels with other stories in the Bible.
The end of Samson’s life where he pulls the building down upon himself and the Philistines, killing everyone (Judges 16).
Also in Luke 13, Jesus talks about a Tower in Siloam which fell on eighteen Galileans. The impression we get from this gospel was that these Galileans were cursed because the building fell on them.
Why would the Galileans think that a building falling on someone and then killing them, were cursed?
Could it be that if a stone building falls and kills someone then the body cannot be recovered and buried in the correct manner. Therefore they would be cursed.
Another Biblical character died because a building fell on him. But this is not recorded in the Bible.
The Book of Jubilees was popular reading material amongst the Jewish communities around the birth of Jesus. It is believed that it was originally written around 150 BC. It is a narrative to be read alongside Genesis and Exodus. Many Christian’s believe it is not inspired by the Holy Spirit and does not appear in the majority of Biblical canons.
In Jubilees 4, it mentions that Cain was killed by a stone roof falling in on him. The writer likened it to when Cain used a stone to kill Abel. The God-cursed man died in a ‘cursed’ way.
Could it be this tradition around Cain influenced the Jews’ thinking?
The last word on this needs to go to Jesus.
Luke 13 1 v 5
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
He says that just as the Galileans whose blood mixed with the sacrificial blood were not cursed, people who die when a building falls on them are not cursed either.
But all those who do not choose Christ are cursed and will perish.
Part 6: Job’s Daughters
After Job’s encounter with God, the long suffering man was restored. He received sheep, oxen, camels and donkeys. These were double the amount he had before the trial. And he had seven sons and three daughters, the same number as before.
Job 42 v 14
The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-Happuch.
It is interesting the daughters are named but the sons aren’t. There must be a reason.
Names are very important in the Bible as they can reveal more about the text than is immediately clear at the first reading.
Jemimah has an uncertain root and can be translated as ‘day by day’, though it could also be translated as a female dove. This word doesn’t appear anywhere else in the Bible.
The second daughter, Keziah comes from the word cassia which is a fragrant powered bark. And again, the word doesn’t appear anywhere else in the Bible.
The last daughter has an unusual name, Keren-Happuch. It means a horn of antimony. This phrase is again unique in the Bible. Keren means horn and traditionally caused a translation issue. It is similar to a word which is used to describe Moses’s shining face after he came down from Mount Sinai in Exodus 34. In fact, early Christian depictions of this event show Moses with horns, rather than a shining face.
Happuch is a metallic element known as antinomy. It was ground down by the ancients and used as a cosmetic, particularly as an eyeliner.
Could Keren-Happuch be an attempt to try to represent a horn which is also shining and arcs like an eyeliner? Could this be a way of describing a rainbow?
In summary, the three daughters are, Jemimah (dove), Kezia (wood) and Keren-Happuch (rainbow).
These three elements, dove, wood and rainbow, also appear in the story of Noah.
Is Job’s story linked to the Flood narrative?
There is a sense that while Job was suffering, he was like Noah in the bowels of the Ark.
We do see that Noah was with his three sons and we see Job had his three friends.
And as Noah exits the Ark, he sees the World has been renewed, a new creation. Similarly, after Job’s experience, his personal world is renewed and abundantly restored to him.
How many other Bible stories are linked to the Flood narrative?
Probably more than we realise.
Part 7: Jesus and Job
This is the end of my series on Job.
I thought it would be good to compare the stories of Jesus and Job, looking at the similarities and the contradictions.
Children
Job’s children did not follow in his righteous footsteps. Much like how the Children of Israel failed to obey God’s commands.
It was likely that Job and his family were nomads and lived in tents, so I find it strange that his children were in a stone building when they died. Maybe it was a stone temple to a pagan god. Maybe the raucous behaviour was a part of pagan worship.
Blameless
Both men were blameless in God’s sight (Job 1:1, 1 Peter 1:19). But even though they were blameless, they both went through great suffering.
Falsely Accused
Job’s friends falsely accused him of hidden sin (Job 19:1-2). In the trial of Jesus, there were false witnesses who spoke against Him (Matthew 26:60).
Disfigured
Job was so disfigured by his sufferings that his friends didn’t recognize him.
Job 2:12
When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads.
Similarly, Jesus “was marred more than any man” at His death (Isa 52:14).
Walking on the Water
There is a nice connection in the Book of Job with Jesus walking on the water. I believe this is a proof that Jesus is God.
Job 9 v 8
He (God) alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.
The Four Witnesses
When we imagine the scene of the Crucifixion. We see Jesus on the Cross, with three women and a young man, John, standing nearby. The comforters were named Mary; the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Mary, wife of Cophas.
Whereas with Job, we have his three male comforters; Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. And a young friend called Elihu, which means ‘He is my God’. These friends did not remain silent and argued with Job. Whereas Jesus’ comforters remained respectful and silent.
Jesus Speaks to Job
Another mind bending thought is that as Jesus is God, He is the one speaking to Job from the whirlwind at the end of the book. The picture at the top of this newsletter is a Byzantine illustration showing the pre-incarnate Jesus speaking with Job.
My Redeemer lives
This verse is commonly linked to Jesus.
Job 19 v 25-26
As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that as the last he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God,
Handel includes this verse as part of an aria in his famous oratorio, Messiah.
Prior to this verse, Job complains how all those around him curse him. But after this, he proclaims how he will see God, his Redeemer.
Submission to God
Finally, even though Job was tempted to curse God and die, he instead accepted God’s plan and submitted himself.
Equally, Jesus accepts His Father’s plan and resists temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane. He accepts that He will need to drink from ‘the cup’.
What can we learn from Job?
Following Christ is not about reducing our own personal suffering, but trusting Him when suffering crosses our path. And if we endure through it, we will be greatly blessed, just like Job.
Your work is both amazing (that you have studied so much and take the time to share it) and very helpful to me. Thank you.
I had not seen this as you posted it, I appreciate the compendium. Job is a fascinating book for study, and I have been putting off studying it, so thank you.
Regarding the bit about the buildings falling on people cursing them:
"He says that just as the Galileans whose blood mixed with the sacrificial blood were not cursed, people who die when a building falls on them are not cursed either.
But all those who do not choose Christ are cursed and will perish."
It called to mind a bit from revelation, 6:15-17
"15 And the kings of the earth, and the princes, and tribunes, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of mountains:
16 And they say to the mountains and the rocks: Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb:
17 For the great day of their wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?"
I don't know if it is fair to call them the Damned, but anyway out of fear of the Lord and his wrath and judgement, it is as if they are cursing themselves by calling for the mountains to fall upon them so that they can avoid God. This makes sense (to me) because merely dying by a building does not mean you are cursed, but not choosing Christ is a curse; in Revelation both things are happening on a much larger scale.
Tangent FYI, In case you were unaware, Revelation 6:17 is the inspiration for a bone-chilling painting by John Martin called "The Great Day of His Wrath", which illustrates this phenomenon of the mountains falling upon them.