job Summary and Overview

persecuted, an Arabian patriarch who resided in the land of Uz (q.v.). While living in the midst of great prosperity, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a series of sore trials that fell upon him. Amid all his sufferings he maintained his integrity. Once more God visited him with the rich tokens of his goodness and even greater prosperity than he had enjoyed before. He survived the period of trial for one hundred and forty years, and died in a good old age, an example to succeeding generations of integrity (Ezek. 14:14, 20) and of submissive patience under the sorest calamities (James 5:11). His history, so far as it is known, is recorded in his book.

JOB (desire?),the third son of Issachar. Gen 46:13; called Jashub, 1 Chr 7:1.

Age, and relation to the canon. The book has a unique position in the canon. It is unconnected with Israel, God's covenant people, with whom all the other scriptures are associated. "The law" (towrah ),the Magna Charta of the rest, occurs but once, and then not in its technical sense (Job 22:22). The exodus is never alluded to, though the miraculous events connected with it in Egypt and the desert, with both of which Job shows his acquaintance, would have been appropriate to his and the friends' argument. The destruction of the guilty by the flood (Job 22:15), and that of Sodom and Gomorrah (Job 18:15) possibly, are referred to; but no later facts. The inference seems natural that the book was of an age anterior to Israel. Job's own life was of patriarchal length, 200 years. The only idolatry alluded to is the earliest, Sabeanism, the worship of the sun, moon, and seba or heavenly hosts ( Job 31:26-28). Job sacrifices as priest for his family according to patriarchal usage, and alludes to no exclusive priesthood, temple, or altar. Lastly, the language is Hebrew with an Arabic and Syriac infusion found in no other sacred book, answering to an age when Hebrew still retained many of the elements of the original common Semitic, from which in time branched off Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic, carrying with them severally fragments of the common stock. The obscurity of several phrases, the obsolete words and forgotten traditions (e.g. that of the bushmen, Job 30:4-7), all mark a remote antiquity. The admission of the book into the Hebrew canon, notwithstanding the absence of reference to Israel, is accounted for if Let's theory be adopted that Moses became acquainted with it during his stay in Arabia, near Horeb, and added the prologue and epilogue. To the afflicted Israelites Job's patience and restoration were calculated to be a lesson of special utility. The restriction of "Jehovah" (the divine name revealed to Moses in its bringing the fulfillment of the promise to God's covenant people just at that time:Exodus 6:3) mostly to the prologue and epilogue favors this view. The Holy Spirit directed him to canonize the oriental patriarch's inspired book, just as he embodies in the Pentateuch the utterances of Balaam the prophet from the mountains of the East. The grand theme of the book is to reconcile the saint's afflictions with God's moral government in this present world. The doctrine of a future life in which the seeming anomalies of the present shall be cleared up would have given the main solution to the problem. But as yet this great truth was kept less prominent until "the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Job plainly refers to the resurrection, but not with that persistent prominence with which the New Testament saints rest on it as their continual hope; Job does not make it his main solution. Even still we need something in addition, to clear off the clouds which hang over God's present government of this fallen earth. The first consideration suggested in this sublime history and poem is, "an enemy hath done this." The veil which hides the world of spirits is drawn aside, and Satan, the accuser of the brethren, appears as the mediate cause of Job's afflictions. Satan must be let do his worst to show that his sneer is false that religion is but selfishness," doth Job fear God for naught?" (Job 1:9). The patience and the final perseverance of the saints (Job 1:21; 2:10; 13:15), notwithstanding temporary distrust under Satan's persecutions which entailed loss of family, friends, possessions, and bodily health, are illustrated in Job's history. God's people serve Him for His own sake, not merely for the temporary reward His service generally brings; they serve Him even in overwhelming trial (Genesis 15:1). Herein Job is a type though imperfectly of Him who alone, without once harbouring a distrustful thought, endured all this as well as death in its most agonizing, humiliating form, and, worse than all, the hiding of even God's countenance from Him. Job's chief agony was not so much his accumulated losses and sufferings, not even his being misunderstood by friends, but that God hid His face from him, as these calamities too truly seemed to prove (Job 23:9). Yet conscience told him he was no hypocrite, nay though God was slaying him he still trusted in God (Job 23:10-15; 13:15; compare Abraham, Genesis 22). Job's three trials are progressive: 1. His sudden loss of all blessings external to himself, possessions, servants, and sons; he conquers this temptation: "naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the nameof the Lord." 2. His loss of bodily health by the most loathsome sickness; still he conquers: "shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?"3. His mental conflict brought on by the three friends' suspicion of his insincerity, which he felt untrue, but which seemed justified by his trials from God; this was the poignant sting to his soul, for he accepted their premises, that great suffering proved great sin. Here he failed; yet amidst his impatient groans he still clung desperately to his faith and followed hard after God, and felt sure God would yet vindicate him (Job 23:10; 19:25-27). His chief error was his undue self justification before God, which he at last utterly renounces (<183025> Job 30:25 to Job 31; 32:1; 33:9; 9:17; 10:7; 16:17; 27:5; 29:10-17; 40:4,5; 42:5,6). After fretfully demanding God's interposition (23) to vindicate his innocence he had settled down into the sad conviction that God heeds not, and that His ways of providence are as felicities" (Bacon). Elihu showed how God can be just, and yet the righteous be afflicted; Jehovah's address shows that He must be just, because He is God. God reprimands the three friends, but not Elihu. The simpler and less artificial forms of poetry prevail in Job, a mark of the early age. The Orientals used to preserve their sentiments in a terse, proverbial, poetic form, called mashal; to this form Job's poetry is related. (See JOBAB ).