GOD'S JOY IN CREATION IN THE BOOK OF JOB

Abstract

For all the books and articles written on Job, probably not very many have the word "joy" in their title. 1 Job surely qualifies as the Old Testament's most harrowing and disturbing book in its description of the unimaginable suffering of one of God's favorite saints, all for reasons Job himself cannot understand. Even the first chapter of the book is sobering, to say the least, but the whole of Job's ordeal has a peculiar quality in which the nightmare deepens as we read: as if the death of his children were not enough, Job is then brought to the edge of the grave by illness (2:78); whatever solace he might find with his wife is lost when she recommends compromising integrity with God by cursing him and thus ending Job's agony (2:9); his friends fail in their intent to comfort (2:11) by accusing him of deserving everything he has suffered (e.g., 4:2-8; 8:3-4, 11:6). (Imagine how it felt for someone as devoted to God as Job was to hear from former friends that God was incredibly angry with himand right to be so.) But more than all these torments, Job's deepest pain (cf. 2:13) is his lost friendship with God (29:4). Job never once asks for his picture-perfect life back; he only and obsessively talks about somehow being able to meet with God again and resolve whatever it was that went wrong between them (e.g., 13:13-23; 23:1-7). Job can bless God's name and reconcile himself to the death of his children (1:21). What he cannot be reconciled to is the thought that God is angry with him-and Job simply cannot fathom why (10:2). 2 Even after reading of the resolution of Job's trauma in a new vision of God (42:5-6) and Job's restoration to blessing under God's smile (42:10-17), the memory remains of Job sitting on the ash heap, weeping. Even with a happy ending, joy seems far away from the book. A sense of unease lingers. This unease has dominated some important scholarship on the book of Job. ERIC ORTLUND is Lecturer in Old Testament and Biblical Hebrew at Oak Hill College in London, UK. He holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. 1 This article began its life as a paper for the Wisdom and Biblical Theology program at the 2020 ETS meeting (held online). I am very thankful for the helpful comments and interaction from the program chair Robert Yarbrough and fellow presenters Daniel Estes and Lindsay Wilson. 2 It is crucial to remember that the losses of chapters 1-2 would have been interpreted by Job and his friends not just as misfortune but also as angry punishment from God for sin (i.e., just as Job's piety in 1:1 issues in blessing under God's hand in vv. 2-4, so the loss of these blessings would have implied to everyone that Job had lost his piety as well). For someone who loved God as much as Job did and was as scrupulous in obedience as Job was, the inexplicable wrath and anger of God would have been awful.