Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of

Bible and Theology

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The Transformation of Job

R.A.F. MacKenzie
Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible and Theology 1979; 9; 51
DOI: 10.1177/014610797900900202

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 THE TRANSFORMATION OF JOB
R.A.F. MacKenzie, S.J.
Jesuit School of Theology
Berkeley,
In some of the narrative materials of
the Hebrew scriptures there is an in-
triguing pattern, which may be labeled
&dquo;the Transformation theme&dquo;. (It
somewhat resembles the standard struc-
ture of classical Greek tragedy.) This
pattern proceeds in three successive
stages: first a hero is presented in a
privileged state or condition, which is in
some way superhuman, i.e. superior to
normal human life and experience; then
some crisis or disaster supervenes, by
which the hero is forcibly brought down
to a state of wretchedness and in-
feriority, which is recognizably the con-
dition of ordinary non-heroic men. But
the pattern is not concluded there: there
follows a third stage, in which some
word or act of God gives a new and un-
expected meaning or direction to the
hero’s existence. As examples of this
transformation theme I would cite the
Garden of Eden story (Gen 2-3); the
traditions concerning the nazirite
Samson (Jgs 13-16); in part, the Joseph
story (Gen 37; 39-41); and the book of
Job. It is this last that will be examined
here.
Composition of Job
First a word on our understanding of
the book as a literary composition. In
accordance with a respectable body of
opinion, I attribute the prologue and
epilogue (Job 1-2; 42:7-17), in their
present form, to the same author as
composed the dialogue between Job and
his three friends (Job 4-27). In prologue
and epilogue I believe he was reworking
for his own purposes a pre-existing prose
narrative, the so-called folktale; but for
the speeches of Job, of the friends, and
of the Lord’ I believe he is entirely
responsible. (This means that we may
draw on chapters 29 and 31 to illustrate
51
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CA.
or amplify the prologue.) The Elihu
speeches (32-37), however, may be set
aside as the work of a second author,
and chapter 28 lies outside the structure
of the dialogue.
The attempts at classification of the
work, as is well known, have not produc-
ed a consensus. Traditionally (though
the tradition is rather modern) it has
been labeled wisdom literature, but its
uniqueness from several points of view
makes that classification dubious. It
would hardly be an exaggeration to call
the book of Job anti-sapiential, since it
contains a sharp attack on at least one
sector of the wisdom tradition in Israel.
However, even if the book is a minority
report (as is also, in another way,
Ecclesiastes), the material it deals with
is in part the same as that treated by the
sages: namely, the right relationship of a
man to the world, to his fellow-man, to
his Creator. It is no doubt true, as
Weiser and others have insisted, that
the book and its argument are directed,
in the last analysis, to correcting and
purifying a current image of God. But
since the heuristic process begins from
Man and his experience and is con-
ducted in terms of that experience, we
may legitimately focus our attention on
the man who is after all at center stage,
and whose progressive enlightenment
and transformation are the author’s
medium for articulating his message.
Job
By the transformation of Job,
therefore, we understand his passing
from the first stage (outlined above)
into the second, and from that into the
third. In spite of the ending of the story,
it is not correct to say that the hero is
put through a severe test, which he
passes successfully and after which he
finds himself just as before. On the con-
trary : the effect of the whole process is
to change Job profoundly. He is not the
same man at the end of the book as at
the beginning. He is on a new level of ex-
istence. He has become Man, in a way
that he was not before.
The book opens with the presentation
of a certain ideal of human existence,
graphically described at the beginning
of the prologue. Here we find a man in
whom all ethical and religious qualities
are raised, as it were, to the highest
power, and whose external circum-
stances leave nothing to be desired. To
Job’s moral perfection corresponds, in a
different order, the perfection of his ex-
ternal goods - family, honor and
material riches. These last present the
ideal of the good life as it could be im-
agined by the post-exilic Jewish readers
of an ancient story, neatly combining
the traditional wealth of the patriarchs,
in livestock, with a &dquo;modern&dquo; concept
of urban comfort: Job and his sons live
in houses, not tents, and in ch. 29, which
fills out the picture, we see that Job is
also the leading citizen of a city.
We may ask, though, how human this
idealized Job really is. Chapter 31, also
filling out the picture, assures us that his
fear of God and avoidance of evil really
do include a most admirably sensitive
ethic of love and generosity to fellow-
men and women. But what is missing is
any sense of struggle, and consequently
of achievement. However vital and per-
sonal the virtuous actions listed in ch.
31, they remain ideal and effortless. Job
was never seriously tempted to do
otherwise. His wife’s recommendation in
2:9 -
&dquo;Curse God, and die!&dquo; -
is the
first real temptation that is offered him.
And his brief speeches in 1:21 and 2: 10
have, just because of their dramatic set-
tings, more impact on the reader than
the solemn assurance of ch. 31.
Unfallen Job
One may say that the Job of the open-
52
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ing of the book is a man whom one can ad-
mire and marvel at, but cannot seriously
identify with. He is too remote from
human nature experience, as we know it in
the world we live in -
whether in the
5th/4th century B.C. or the 20th of the
in
Christian era. As the Satan points out, Job
has been very completely &dquo;fenced around&dquo;
from the thousand natural shocks that
flesh is heir to. In short, his character and
situation are both unique -
as the Lord
says, &dquo;there is none like him in the earth&dquo;
-
with the result that, whatever his value
as a paradigm or model, he simply does
not belong to the human race we know. He
is Unfallen Man; and if the author of
Genesis had shown us Adam and his wife
successfully resisting their temptation,
he might well have shown us their off-
spring as enjoying the paradisal existence
and the flawless conscience which are
presented to us in the figure of Job.
Job: &dquo;Like any other man&dquo;
The first step in the transformation of
Job, then, consists in bringing him down
to the level of Fallen Man. Granted, his
Fall is significantly different from
Adam’s. With the latter, temptation
came first and affliction followed. With
Job, the affliction is first and the temp-
tation follows. But both are experiences
common to all, and when we see Job
struggling to come to terms with them
we can at last empathize with him. In
another famous temptation scene (Jgs
16:7,11,13,17), Samson remarks -
deceptively, the first three times, but
truthfully in the end - &dquo;my strength
will leave me, and I shall become weak
and be like any other man.&dquo; Job, at the
end of the Prologue, has become &dquo;like
any other man.&dquo; The perfect and ideal
Man has been rudely thrust out of
Paradise, to share the common lot of his
fallen brethren. Whether he will identify
with them, or keep himself apart, what
new role he will find: these are some of
his problems which awaken the reader’s
sympathetic interest. One of the many

paradoxes of the book is that whereas
the hero starts out (1:1) by being defin-
ed as &dquo;perfect&dquo;, what we are shown is a
long process of education and
purification which he must undergo.
&dquo;Perfect&dquo; is a relative term, and at the
end of the book Job has obviously at-
tained, or been elevated to, a perfection
of quite a different order from that pic-
tured in ch. 1. As the Letter to the
Hebrews remarks of Christ (5:8), so Job
&dquo;learned by suffering.&dquo;
What then is the change of heart and
mind produced in Job by his devastating
experience? It is not a first realization
of, or even acquaintance with, suffering
in the world. In chs. 29 and 31 he insists
on the compassion he has shown for the
unfortunate, his sympathy with the suf-
fering, his humane treatment even of
slaves. That realistic love of his
neighbor is
expressly located in the days
of his own prosperity, &dquo;when God
watched over me when the
...
friendship of God was upon my tent&dquo;
(29:2-4). But at that time he did not
look beneath the surface; he was not
conscious of the existence of any
problem relative to God. To judge by
Eliphaz’ remark (4:3f), &dquo;You have in-
structed many ... your words have up-
held him who was stumbling&dquo;, he had
accepted the standard retribution
doctrine without demur and without
questioning. (see also 29:18-20 and
30:26) He examined only his own con-
science, and finding that at peace he ex-
plored no further.
But nowthat doctrine is shown to be
falsified in his own experience, and
therefore it may be falsified in the ex-
perience of others. Perhaps the
numerous sufferers whom Job has en-
countered, whom he has charitably
helped, may have been as innocent as he
is. The problem is generalized: not only
is God’s treatment of Job himself an ab-
surdity, an irrational mystery, but so
perhaps is his moral government of the
world in general.
53
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’
..
Job’s Transition
Job’s initial soliloquy, ch. 3, to
serves
illustrate the transition -
to be
repeated in his later speeches -
from his
particular case to the general condition
of mankind. Verses 3-16 express Job’s
abhorrence of the life that has been
allotted to him, and his preference and
desire for relative non-existence in
Sheol. In the description of the latter
(vv.l7-19), attention is drawn to those
of its inmates who like Job have reason
to prefer it to their miserable and
oppressed existence on earth: the weary,
the prisoners, the slaves. In the follow-
ing strophe (vv. 20-23) they are further
described as those &dquo;in misery ... the
bitter in soul ... who long for death ...
who rejoice ... when they find the
grave.&dquo; V. 23 marks the transition back
to Job’s particular case, &dquo;Why is light
given to a man whose way is hid, whom
God has hedged in?&dquo;
The generalized lament recurs briefly
in Job’s response to Eliphaz, chs. 6-7, in
the famous words, &dquo;Has not man a hard
service upon earth, and are not his days
like the days of a hireling?&dquo; But it is in
ch. 9 that for the first time Job expressly
envisages cases parallel to his own: con-
trary to the friends’ doctrine of
automatic retribution, there are people
who suffer without having deserved that
suffering. &dquo;It is all one; therefore I say,/
he destroys both the blameless and the
wicked./ When disaster brings sudden
death,/ he mocks at the calamity of the
innocent./ The earth is given into the
hand of the wicked;/ he covers the face
of its judges./ If it is not he, who then is
it?&dquo; (9:22-24).
Arbitrariness of life
In 12:7-25 the great description of
God’s irresistible domination and dis-
position of all human life quite prescinds
from any question of merit or demerit in
the feeble and helpless creatures that are
arbitrarily being pushed around. The
pretence that God must have a good
moral reason for every pain inflicted on
men is, according to Job, whitewash and
lies; it is offensive to God himself
(13:10). The arbitrariness of divine
government could of course be accepted,
just as Job had accepted it without
criticism or enquiry in 1:21; but the
friends will not admit that good or bad
&dquo;fortune&dquo; is arbitrary. For them, it is
always the manifestation of divine
judgment on human behavior. This
view - an all-too-easy exaggeration of
the general wisdom teaching
temptation to Job: is it possible that his
friends are right? If they are, then in
view of his own clear conscience it
follows that God is treating him un-
justly. He is an evil God. That is the
horrible nightmare against which Job is
struggling. It can be dispelled only by
some word or sign from God himself.
Hence the desperate appeal in 13:13-27.
Job and the Love of God
In ch. 14, we return to the generalized
case, though in several phrases Job is
identifying himself with Man in general.
Here again the moral aspect of the
problem is left aside. It is the contrast of
man’s ephemerality and littleness with
divine transcendence that is stressed,
joined with an intensely emotional
appeal to the love, now hidden, that Job
has been accustomed to contemplate
and return thanks for. That love must
be still existent, if only Job can provoke
it into action. This he tries to do by an
appeal to compassion, the proper in-
dulgence of a noble nature for the weak
and inferior. (There is a still more
touching expression of this appeal in
30:25, where Job cites his own practice
of compassion and sympathy for the
wretched, as a kind of paradigm or ex-
ample which he expects God to follow.)
But compassion supposes fellow-feeling.
Can the almighty have such a feeling for
this feeble creature Man, so infinitely
beneath him, so limited, finite, tran-
sient ? Rather, when he does pay
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attention to him the effect is only to
aggravate man’s misery: 14:6, &dquo;Look
away from him and desist, that he may
enjoy, like a hireling, his day.&dquo;
In ch. 16 Job concentrates on his own
situation and has nothing directly to say
about that of mankind in general. This
passionate lament is notable for its
drastic description of God’s attack on
Job (vv. 7-17). The friends consistently
present the punishment of the wicked in
impersonal terms, as something
-
is a automatic, fated, mechanically
triggered by man’s own bad acts. (Only
Zophar in ch. 20 refers in passing to
God’s action in punishing sinners.) But
Job will have none of this apparent
automatism. All that befalls him he con-
ceives as the deliberately decided act of
a personal deity. This has been his
habitual religious outlook, dating from
the time of his felicity, &dquo;in the days
when God watched over me&dquo;. It may
remind us of the unconstrained and in-
timate relationship pictured in Genesis
between the Lord God and the first
man. The latter is not blessed, to begin
with, and later punished, by any Fate or
impersonal Law. He is created, blessed,
instructed, interrogated, judged and
punished by an entirely personal,
benevolent, just but compassionate
Lord. And this is the way in which Job
interprets his experience. The apparent
judgment and punishment that have
fallen upon him are certainly divine
acts, just as much as were the preceding
creation and blessing. But how are they
to be understood? With what intention
or from what motive has God inflicted
them? If the explanation is not in Job, it
must be in God. What then is it?
Thus far we have the second stage in
what I have called the transformation of
Job. He has become &dquo;like other men&dquo; in
the sense that he is forced to confront a
mystery in his own experience and in
human experience generally. He was not
so forced, when all was going well with
him personally. But at that time, he was
54
not really experiencing human life, as
is lived by the mass of mankind.
Divine Intervention
We come now to the last stage in-
dicated above: the divine intervention,
which in a way quite foreign to human
expectations establishes a new
relationship between God and the
&dquo;tragic hero&dquo;. In the original folktale
about Job this was presumably a simple
re-creation of his original status, as now
in 42:10-17, with a rather clumsy doubl-
ing of his wealth to make it all seem
worth while. But the author of the
dialogue was far too great an artist to
rest satisfied with that relatively crude
device. He boldly undertook to in-
troduce onto his stage the Deity himself,
responding at last to Job’simpassioned
invocations, and manifesting himself to
this sorely tried man. At the same time,
the speeches put in the mouth of
Yahweh are not simply substituted for
the prose conclusion of the story. As I
interpret the structure of the story,
speeches and restoration go together;
both are needed, in their present form,
to express the author’s intended con-
clusion of his great composition.
God Speaks
There is first the fact that Yahweh
does speak to Job, and it is for the first
time. There is no suggestion at the
beginning of the book, or in Job’s
reminiscences in ch. 29, that Job had
ever received a divine communication,
such as a prophet’s vision, or even a
ghostly nocturnal message such as
Eliphaz claimed to have heard (4:12ff).
Job’s knowledge of God had been based
simply on his natural experience, or on a
humanistic sapiential tradition, such as
the friends often appeal to. Certainly he
is not an Israelite, therefore not a par-
ticipant in the Mosaic covenant. But he
had been gifted and favored with hap-
piness above all other men - &dquo;the
greatest of all the Easterners&dquo; and
-
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it from that he had inferred the nature of
God, his concern and his love for Job.
And love had called forth love: clearly
Job’s perfection and uprightness are not
(as the Satan claimed) mere self-
interest, good bargaining, a fair ex-
change for God’s gifts. The whole point
of the story is to disprove that idea.
Therefore Job did and does truly love
God, and his violent outcries in the
dialogue are an expression of love,
affronted and bewildered by what seems
to be an exercise of unprovoked enmity
and cruelty on the part of the loved one.
The speeches of Yahweh then con-
stitute a personal reaction which affirms
his continued interest and concern for
Job. The patriarchal setting of the
whole narrative makes the theophany
seem quite natural cf. similar casual-
-
ly introduced speeches of God to
Abraham in Gen 12ff -
and it es-
tablishes in the reader’s mind that Job is
one chosen, the object of God’s
attention in the same way as Abraham,
Isaac or Jacob or, to mention another
-
figure outside the line of the chosen
people, as Abimelech of Gerar (Gen
20:2ff). As Abimelech had acted &dquo;in the
integrity of his heart&dquo;, so has Job, and
the Lord acknowledges a similar claim
upon his intervention.
But it is what the Lord says to Job,
finally, that constitutes the rectification
of Job’s arguments and appeals, and
shows what must be Fallen Man’s
principle of judgment and action
regarding God’s treatment of him. Man
must acknowledge his own in-
competence to judge, his own entirely
inadequate understanding of the Lord’s
&dquo;counsel&dquo;, his providence, his inten-
tions. The speech, incidentally, con-
demns the friends’ arguments quite as
definitely as Job’s: they too have
&dquo;darkened counsel by words without
knowledge&dquo;. But in their self-confidence
they had not thought it necessary to
appeal to any divine explanation or
decision. Job at least had insisted on the
55
presence of a mystery, of something that
challenged explanation. And only he
receives an answer, even if it is not quite
the desired explanation. The author
does not make clear to us whether the
friends are supposed to hear or overhear
Yahweh’s address to Job. But most
probably he implies that, as it is
directed only to Job, it is heard only by
him. And cf. 42:7.
Job’s Reaction
Of great significance, obviously, is
Job’s reaction to and acceptance of the
Lord’s rebuke (40:5f, and especially
42:2-6). Here we see him, as it were,
beginning his new life. He enters into a
really new existence, which is to say, a
new relationship to his Creator. And all
the preceding experience was necessary,
to make this possible. The speeches of
Yahweh would simply not be under-
stood, not produce their due effect, if
delivered at an earlier stage of Job’s
career. Let the reader try the ex-
periment of reading chs. 38-39 as im-
mediately following on 1:5, or even on
2:10: he will agree, I think, that Job
would have been more puzzled than
enlightened or converted. The answer
cannot be understood before the
question has been raised.
The author, naturally, is precluded
from inserting in the divine speeches
anything that we might call divine
revelation. He has chosen to situate his
discussion in the international setting of
wisdom, and among non-Israelites;
hence he may not draw on any
specifically Israelite doctrines, such
those of the Covenant or the Promise.
He can and does suppose monotheism;
but not the concept of a judgment after
death or possible felicity in a future life.
In substance then the Lord’s speech
contains nothing that Job could not
have thought of for himself. And if he
could have thought of it, he ought to
have done so. This is one reason for the
tone of rebuke which is so prominent in
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the address. If we may consider it for a
moment from the point of view of the
author (and he surely meant it to be a
definitive comment on Job’s earlier out-
bursts), he is rebuking himself for being
for a time too occupied and influenced
by his own bitter reaction to the naive
and over-simplified wisdom doctrine
which is represented by Job’s friends.
Here the comparison which has been
frequently made with Psalm 73 is very
instructive. When that Psalmist comes
to describe his conversion he blames
himself severely: &dquo;When my soul was
embittered,/ when I was pricked in
heart,/ I was stupid and ignorant,/ I was
like a beast toward thee.&dquo; Or we might
compare the scene near the end of
Dante’s Purgatorio, in which the
author’s beloved Beatrice, instead of
welcoming him with a rapturous &dquo;All is
forgiven!&dquo;, upbraids him unmercifully
through most of two cantos for his past
infidelity and weakness, and is not
appeased until he has confessed and dis-
owned them with tears. Some critics
have expressed high indignation at
Beatrice’s Spartan welcome. But I think
they miss the point that throughout it is
Dante the author who is speaking;
Beatrice is (as a literary figure) his
creation and his mouthpiece, so that he
is simply and severely
-
judging -
himself. The reader’s sympathy natural-
ly goes out to the Dante in the poem;
but he should sympathize also with
author-Dante’s honest self-
condemnation.
as Job’s self-rebuke
Something similar perhaps is verified
in the Lord’s speeches to Job, in which,
fundamentally, the author is rebuking
himself. And needless to say, Job’s final
retractation (42:5-6), &dquo;I had heard of
thee by the hearing of the ear,/ but now
my eye sees thee;/ therefore I despise
myself,/ and repent in dust and ashes&dquo;,
is not to be understood merely as
resignation and submission to a higher
56
power. It is full acceptance of the
mystery, confirmed by this personal
contact with the Almighty.
.
The Epilogue
Finally, there is the contribution of
the prose epilogue. Of interest for our
purpose are the verses (42:?-l0a) which
describe the successful intercession of
Job on behalf of the three friends (Elihu
does not enter the picture here). There is
an obvious parallelism here with the
sacrifices he is described in the prologue
as offering on behalf of his sons (1:5);
but the difference is also notable. He
was bound to his sons by natural
obligation; one can hardly consider him
as having any similar obligation to three
men who have consistently attacked,
calumniated and condemned him.
Whatever the bond of friendship (cf.
Job’s earlier appeals to it in 6:15-23,
19:21f), it has surely been dissolved by
the friends’ own words and judgment.
Yet Job accepts their appeal, and
becomes - what they had refused to be
for him - their intercessor before God.
This generosity is something over and
above the normal standard of wisdom
ethics in the Old Testament. (See also
Ecclus 28:1-?) But it is consistent with
Job’s own practice, as he describes it,
57
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e.g., in31:29, &dquo;If I have rejoiced at the
ruin of him that hated me,/ or exulted
when evil overtook him ... &dquo; It is
further evidence of the consistency of
Job’s character. And because it is effec-
tive is in fact demanded and then
-
accepted by God - it is evidence also of
the higher status that Job at the end of
the book has acquired.
Job: The New Man
It is fair to say then that Job at the
end of the book is a nobler and more ad-
mirable character than he was at the
beginning, and at the same time more
fully a man. After being forcibly
brought down to the level of other, or-
dinary, suffering men, he has
nevertheless maintained his integrity
and his loyalty. He has been &dquo;tempted
as we are, yet without sin&dquo; (Heb 4:15),
and the ancient poet surely achieved
here one of the more remarkable
foreshadowings of the future Saviour, a
figure worthy to stand beside the
Servant of Deutero-Isaiah.
NOTE
1
That is, for the section 38:1-40:14. The descrip-
tions of Behemoth and Leviathan (40:15-
41:34[MT 26]) may possibly be from another
hand.