Biblical Theology Brief 1: The Book of Job

Kimberly Nicole Tanner

February 6, 2017

Box #92

2180 Words
 “He delivers the afflicted by their afflictions,
he reveals himself to them by their suffering.” – Job 36:15

Introduction

Two themes saturate the book of Job: suffering and theodicy. The former is embodied

both in the loss of possessions, family, and health that God allows Satan to inflict upon Job and

in the accusatory, hasty council given him by his friends and wife. The latter, derived from the

Greek words θεός, “God,” and δίκη, “justice,”1 is defined by the Merriam-Webster to mean “a

defense of God's goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil,”2 or by John Piper

as “the relationship between human suffering and divine justice.”3 Theodicy arises

multifariously throughout the book— in Job’s pondering of the will of God and the purpose of

his suffering; in the words of his wife, his friends, and Elihu; in God’s own words to Job; in

Job’s response to God’s words. Through both themes— Job’s enumerated sufferings and the

theodicy implicit in the text— God’s justice is vindicated to Satan, to Job and his family and

friends, and by extension to all men. Christ epitomizes the blameless sufferer, and his gospel

embodies theodicy.

God’s Justice Questioned

In paradise, the serpent approaches Eve and slyly inquires, “Did God really say…?”4 and

proceeds to counter the words of the Lord, in so doing challenge his very character. “You will

not surely die,” he says. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and

1
Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. “theodicy,” accessed February 5, 2017, https://www.britannica.com/topic/
theodicy-theology.
2
Merriam-Webster, s.v. “theodicy,” accessed February 5, 2017, https://www.merriam-webster.com/
dictionary/theodicy.
3
Piper, John, Justin Taylor, and Mark Talbot, Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Wheaton, IL:
Crossway Books, 2009), 125, accessed February, 2017, http://cdn.desiringgod.org/pdf/books_bssg/books_bssg.pdf.
4
Genesis 3:1.

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you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Similarly, in the heavenly courts of God

presented in Job 1, Satan approaches the Almighty and challenges him to his face by questioning

the faithfulness of his servant Job, whom God has just highly praised. “Does Job fear God for no

reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side?

…But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face” (1:10-

11). Again in Job 2:4-5 Satan declares, “All that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch

out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” In both of

these instances, Satan is implicitly claiming that Job’s faithfulness to God is insured merely by

circumstantial means— that Job is faithful because God has given him wealth and a good

situation. “This man was the greatest of all the people of the east” (1:3). So if God takes away

from Job the circumstantial blessing, Satan claims, Job would no longer be faithful to God. But

not only is Job’s faithfulness in question; God’s is as well. It seems that God only receives

worship from Job when Job is prospering. Thus, the issue at hand is whether God’s goodness is

made manifest and is worthy of praise only in times of his people’s prosperity, or if it is likewise

even made manifest and worthy of praise in suffering as well? Herein surfaces the theme of

theodicy.

Job’s Suffering

Two sets of trials, inflicted by Satan but ordained by God, assail Job in this book. The

first is contained in Job 1:13-21. Job’s oxen, donkeys, sheep, camels, servants, sons, and

daughters were all struck dead, and Job was notified of these tragedies all at once by four

messengers, the only servants of all Job’s household who survived. The second set of trials is

contained in Job 2:7-8. Job is struck with “loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown

of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in

the ashes.”

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 In response to the first of these trials, Job appropriately mourns but also falls to the

ground “and worshiped. And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I

return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ In all this

Job did not sin or charge God with wrong” (1:20-22). In response to the second trial, Job

rebukes his sinful wife who exhorts him to “curse God and die” (2:9) by instead declaring, “‘You

speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we

not receive evil?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips” (2:10).

Though Job is, as God says, “a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away

from evil” (1:8; 2:3) and who “holds fast to his integrity” (2:3), he is only human, and in the

midst of his suffering he is overwhelmed with grief and perplexity. But rather than cursing God

in the midst of his tribulation, as Satan predicts he will do (1:11; 2:5) and as his wife advises him

to do (2:9), Job seeks refuge in the sovereignty of God. Because of this stalwart acceptance of

the hard providences of God, even though Job wrestles with the goodness of God and was

tormented with great suffering, physical, emotional, spiritual, it is true nonetheless that he did not

sin in his state of bewildered bereavement. Amidst the conversations with his friends, Job

continues mournfully to curse the day he was born (3:3-26), to declare his loathing for life (6-7;

9-10), to laud the mysterious wisdom of God above the wisdom of men (12-14; 26), to declare

what miserable comforters his friends are (16), to complain how the wicked prosper and

righteous suffer (21), to ask where God is in all his suffering (23-24), to expound upon the

narrative of his life (28-31), and overall just to mourn with a broken spirit what has befallen him

(17; 19; 27-28).

Thus, the nature of Job’s words is that of grief, bewilderment, and trust in God. He

suffers but remains righteous, thus disproving the words of Satan, who claimed he would curse

God to his face when confronted with suffering. Job, to the bewilderment and chagrin of Satan,

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affirms that God is good and worthy of praise even in the midst of his suffering. God gave Job

all he possessed and took away all he possessed, aside from Himself; and even in ordaining this

great affliction upon Job, Job proclaims that God remains ever just, holy and good (1:20-22).

The Counsel of Job’s Friends

Componential to Job’s suffering is the accusatory advice of his friends, Eliphaz, Bildad,

and Zophar, who “represent the age-old wisdom of retribution theology. In their case, however, it

has become quite rigid and mechanical. God blesses the righteous; he curses the wicked. If so,

then if Job suffers, he must be a sinner in need of repentance (4:7-11; 11:13-20).”5 There is even

a sense in which the friends represent Satan’s case, while Job represents the divine case.6 Job

remains immovable in his trust of God (2:10), while his friends never stop pressing that it is

Job’s hidden sins that are responsible for his plight. They, too, are attempting to uphold their

understanding of God’s justice, but they have no true understanding of suffering or justice or

grace. God can ordain suffering and it not be as retribution for a sin a man has committed;

further, he is gracious and longsuffering and passes over the sins of men for a time, that his love

be manifest more clearly.7

The appearance and counsel of the young man Elihu adds another element to the story.

He steps into the scene and speaks truth to Job, stating the following things. Creation is by the

hands of God (33:3); God is greater than man (33:12); God delights in the praying man (33:26)

God does no wrong (34:10); all life proceeds from God and has no sustenance without Him

(34:14-15); God is impartial in judgment (34:19); God watches men (34:21-28); God is not

5
Dillard, Raymond B., and Tremper Longman, An Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 1994), 229.
6
Dumbrell, William J., The Faith of Israel: A Theological Survey of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Academic, 2002), 255.
7
C.f., Romans 5:25.

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influenced by the inherent righteousness or unrighteousness of man (35:7-8); God’s gaze is on

the righteous (36:7); God binds the godless (36:13); God rescues by affliction (36:15); God is the

exalted and authoritative teacher (36:22); God thunders (37:4-5); God controls the weather

(37:12); God is unreachable (37:23). However, Elihu still seems to espouse the theology of

retributive justice, implying that Job suffers because he has sinned (34:11, 25-27, 37).

God’s Justice Vindicated

God does not leave Job in lonely dismay forever. After allowing Job to suffer for a time

and allowing him to wrestle with His justice and goodness in spite of trials, God condescends

and speaks to Job, defending His nature and rebuking Job for his doubt. Even so, however,

“there is no hint in these speeches that Job is being treated as a sinner; rather, he is being treated

as one whose horizons need to be expanded. God has appeared in answer to Job’s appeal.”8 God

challenges Job first in 38:1–40:2, wherein he appeals to his magnificent power displayed in the

creation he has made; God exposes Job’s ignorance by asking him numerous questions, such as

those beginning with, “Do you know?” (38:20, 21, 33) God challenges Job a second time in

40:6–41:34. Herein God appeals to strength of his creation to expose Job’s weakness, pointing

to Leviathan and Behemoth. God’s goodness is vindicated to Job in the sense that God is the

cause of all things that exist and cares for them. Beyond this, after rebuking Job’s three foolish

friends in 42:7-9, God restores to Job the possessions he had lost, and beyond this final

restoration it is true that throughout Job’s suffering before, God had put limits on what Satan

could do to him (1:12; 2:6) and even chose to rescue Job by means of affliction (36:15). God’s

grace is instructive to Job by means of his suffering. Is God just in all this? Definitively, yes, he

is. His character is not compromised by allowing his servant to suffer. Further, Job’s response to

8
Dumbrell, Faith of Israel, 255.

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all his suffering, after hearing the word from God, is to proclaim that he has experienced “things

too wonderful for me to know” (32:3).

God’s will is mysterious. Indeed, He gives and takes away, but as Job has stalwartly

reiterated, some things remains certain through anything that comes to pass: God is sovereign,9

and He is good,10 and in His Providence He works things together for the good of His people,11

even amidst surprising and unfathomable suffering.

“Indeed the Book of Job avowedly only answers mystery with mystery. Job is
comforted with riddles; but he is comforted. Herein is indeed a type, in the sense
of a prophecy, of things speaking with authority. For when he who doubts can
only say, ‘I do not understand,’ it is true that he who knows can only reply or
repeat ‘You do not understand.’ And under that rebuke there is always a sudden
hope in the heart; and the sense of something that would be worth
understanding.”12
Christ the Sinless Sufferer

Job and Christ were synonymous as those who suffered innocently. However, Job’s

suffering, though great, was nothing compared to the passion of Christ. “What God foretold by

the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled,” says Acts 3:18.

Indeed, though sinless Himself, He bore the wrath of God against the sins of all mankind.

The differences between the sufferings of Christ and of Job are manifold. One of these is

that Job, being only a man, was by nature a child of wrath13 and thus did sin at times and indeed

innately deserve the wrath of God to be set against him, no matter how good his deeds were; he

still required God’s grace and mercy in order to be seen as righteous. Christ, on the other hand,

9
Job 37:23, c.f., 42:2; Psalm 135:6
10
Job 1:21, c.f., Romans 2:24; Psalm 119:68.
11
Job 34:12, c.f., Romans 8:28.
12
Chesterton, G. K, The Everlasting Man (Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2014), 6.
13
Ephesians 2:3

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was by nature not only man but also divine; thus, he needed no grace from the Father but instead

upheld the requirements of God’s justice by his own virtue. Another difference is that Job did

not voluntarily bear the suffering that God ordained for him; whereas, Christ did willingly

choose to embrace the suffering He undertook, for the salvation of sinful people. “In Jesus, God

enters into the world of human suffering to redeem humanity. Jesus experienced the height of

human suffering on the cross, and He did so without complaining.”14 Jesus’s death, however,

did not make an end of suffering for those still living; no, in fact, the Christian’s life is

characterized by suffering, for we are called to take up our cross and follow in the footsteps of

Christ. As proven by the life and words of Job, a calling to embrace such suffering should not

actually bring God’s justice into question. He is almighty. He formed the earth. He created

man. He endures from eternity past to eternity future. He is free to do whatever He likes,

though, comfortingly, He is unable to violate His own nature, which is one of righteousness,

goodness, and love. Christ undertook the will of His Father with faith and resolve; he endured

his suffering and in so doing ransomed the lives of millions of otherwise condemned sinners.

May we live in light of this gospel of Christ and embrace a cruciform way of life, that we may

bring the highest glory to God and that He might be infuse within us the greatest satisfaction and

joy in Himself.

14
Dillard and Longman, Introduction to the Old Testament, 236.

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 Works Cited

Chesterton, G.K. The Everlasting Man. Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2014.

Dillard, Raymond B., and Tremper Longman. An Introduction to the Old Testament. Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994.

Dumbrell, William J. The Faith of Israel: A Theological Survey of the Old Testament. Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002.

Piper, John, Justin Taylor, and Mark Talbot. Suffering and the Sovereignty of God. Wheaton, IL:
Crossway Books, 2009. Accessed February, 2017. http://cdn.desiringgod.org/pdf/bo
oks_bssg/books_bssg.pdf

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 1. God’s justice

2. Job’s suffering

3. Job’s friends’ speech regarding God’s justice and Job’s suffering

4. God vindicating his justice by speaking about Job’s suffering and his justice

1. God vindicates himself through Job’s suffering (Job never curses God)

2. God vindicates himself by giving Job wonder (42:3) and showing Job his place in all

creation (38:41)  Job’s experience is a microcosm of the experience of the universe at

large.

Isaiah 42:1–9; Isaiah 49:1–13; Isaiah 50:4–11; and Isaiah 52:13—53:12.

- Immediate question in all this is, “where is God?”

- Have you considered my servant?

- Point is the justice is proven through Job’s righteousness and sniggering.

- Despite destroying all Job’s comforts, he still blesses God,

- Job’s experience is a microcosm of what is happening in the universe

- Where were you when I did these things

- God’s righteousness is grater than job… Leviathan, etc.

- God’s righteousness is vindicated in that Job does not curse God

- God displays all creation saying he mad it all, takes away from immediacy of

circumstances to see magnitude of glory of God.

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Job understands something about God that Satan doesn’t understand about Job.

Satan argues to God that Job will curse Go to his face if he doesn’t

God is righteous even in suffering, God is good righteous sovereign; job struggles with it but

understands these things. His wife tells him to curse God and die.

Associate Job with the Psalmist and Qoheleth

Psalm 88 and 22; Christological suffering and Job’s complaints in certain chapters of the book.

Psalm 89

Job 6:14

Psalm 39

Psalm 90

Ecclesiastes 12

Providence is a mystery, but it is in the mystery that Job finds greatest comfort.

Because you make him rich, Job’s faithfulness is in question, but so is God’s. God’s character

is in question because God only seems to receive worship from Job when Job is prospering.

Regarding the understanding of the goodness of God. Is God’s goodness only manifest in

prosperity so God is worshipped, or is God’s goodness even manifest in suffering, thus he is

worshipped?

Here Satan is implicitly saying that by allowing—indeed, ordaining— suffering to beset his

upright followers, God compromises his character, such that his servants should be released from

faithfulness to God.

“Indeed the Book of Job avowedly only answers mystery with mystery. Job is comforted with
riddles; but he is comforted. Herein is indeed a type, in the sense of a prophecy, of things
speaking with authority. For when he who doubts can only say, ‘I do not understand,’ it is true
that he who knows can only reply or repeat ‘You do not understand.’ And under that rebuke

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there is always a sudden hope in the heart; and the sense of something that would be worth
understanding.”

― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

“With whom hath He taken counsel?” – Isaiah 40:14

“…That other great surprise which makes Job suddenly satisfied with the mere presentation of
something impenetrable. Verbally speaking the enigmas of Jehovah seem darker and more
desolate than the enigmas of Job; yet Job was comfortless before the speech of Jehovah and is
comforted after it. He has been told nothing, but he feels the terrible and tingling atmosphere of
something which is too good to be told. The refusal of God to explain His design is itself a
burning hint of His design. The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.

- Chesterton, p.6 of 9 in the pdf from.

Job puts forward a note of interrogation; God answers with a note of exclamation. Instead of
proving to Job that it is an explicable world, He insists that it is a much stranger world than Job
ever thought it was.

- Chesterton, p.6 of 9 in the pdf .

1. Look at the nature of Job’s suffering and explicate it.

2. What is the nature of Job’s friends (and wife) and their (her) advice?

3. What is the nature of Job’s response to his friend’s advice?

4. How does Job initially describe God?

5. How does Elihu respond to Job and his friends?

6. How does God respond to Job?

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