The Book of Job is a book in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and the first poetic book in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Addressing the problem of theodicy – the vindication of the justice of God in the light of humanity's suffering, or more simply, "Why do the righteous suffer?" It is a rich theological work setting out a variety of perspectives. It has been widely and often extravagantly praised for its literary qualities, with Alfred, Lord Tennyson calling it "the greatest poem of ancient and modern times." In this article, I'm going to share with you my interpretation of this book, without worrying about whether the events in the book have actually occurred, or whether it's only a piece of literature. I'm going to give a very quick overview of this book before I represent my interpretation of it. If you have never read this book or don't have the time to read it, you can instead have a look at the amazing video that I have attached to the bottom of this article, which is basically an animated summary of the book compiled by a great Christian ministry known as The Bible Project. Make sure you check their website out!
In this book, we see that God allows Satan to directly attack Job, who is called a righteous servant of God, in order to test Job's faithfulness. Even though Job remains faithful at first, once he breaks his silence and starts talking, it seems as if he was hiding a lot of things inside his chest that he's now letting out. There is a big conversation back and forth between Job and his friends with regards to the problem of evil and suffering which seems to be going nowhere. It is as if Job is on an emotional roller coaster. At some moments he's confident that God is wise and just, yet at other moments he's doubting God's goodness. He even comes to accuse God of being reckless, unfair and corrupt! By the end of the dialogue, Job demands an explanation from God. Now God's answer to Job is not a direct answer but rather a very indirect one similar to how the presuppositional apologetics work! It simply narrows down to God questioning Job back, and showing him that he is not in a position to judge God, but rather it is God who is the Judge of the world. God shows Job how limited he is in his knowledge of the world and how things operate and asks him to answer a few questions if he really thinks he is in a position to judge God! This of course leaves Job in a position of humility which leads him to acknowledge that he has indeed spoken of things he did not understand and things too wonderful for him to know. In the end Job says to God, "You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.' My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." —Job 42:4-6
In Job 1:1 we read that Job was blameless and upright and it's not just the author of the book that calls Job blameless and upright, but even God himself confirms this in Job 1:8. Given the broader context of the Bible, we know that no one is good but God alone. Mark 10:18. We also know that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23. In the broader context of Romans 3, we read about two ways of attaining righteousness. One that comes by the Law through our works while the other one is by Grace through our faith in God who justifies the ungodly. Romans 4:5. Furthermore, we also know that no one has been able to attain righteousness by the Law through their works, except Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Now having this information in mind, we can look at the book of Job from an amazing perspective through which Job was in fact trying to attain righteousness by the Law through his works, and he had been doing pretty well as far as we can tell, until he went through this trial. I don't think that the fact that Job did not pass this trial is open to interpretation. During his emotional roller coaster, he doubts God's goodness, curses the day he was born which is a sin known as ingratitude, and levels some pretty harsh accusations against God near the end! Job ends up despising himself and repenting in the end, which is further proof-text that he did not handle the situation the way he should have and so Job fails the trial!
Having said that, let me clarify that asking questions from God is not a bad thing. In fact, I believe that God would be more than happy to give us the answers that we need if we sit down and have a genuine conversation with Him, and ask genuine questions. Jesus Himself said, "Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you shall find! Knock and the door shall open for you!" Matthew 7:7. But if our questions are not from faith, and presuppose that there is a higher standard above God, or that we are in a position to judge God, then they are not considered genuine questions anymore. These type of questions are logically fallacious and problematic, and they ultimately lead to idolatry. Genuine questions stem from genuine faith/trust in God, while keeping in mind that without God, the very concept of truth falls apart and our questions become meaningless. I have written an article about the kind of faith that God requires from us and in that article, I tend to expand on this issue. If you want to know more about my position, feel free to read this article.
To top it all off, what is the message that we can get from this book? I tend to think that the message that God wants us to get from this book is that trying to attain righteousness by the Law through our works is going to fail! We cannot earn our salvation, because the price is too heavy! The question should be what would we do if we were Job? Do you think you would have passed the trial? I can't speak for everyone, but I do mention very shortly in the first article that I wrote about my background and testimony that I did experience something similar and I too lost the trial, just like Job did. But it only made me realize what this book is actually about and as I promised in my first article, I am now writing a commentary on the book, hoping that this commentary would help others decipher this book so that they don't have to go through what I or Job have, in order to understand that the price for their salvation is too heavy, so much so that trying to earn it is bound to fail! But God who is rich in mercy has provided a way for everyone, and He is offering eternal salvation as a gift which is what the good news about Jesus or the Gospel is all about and all we have to do is receive it; all we have to do is to simply say yes to God, and trust in God and His promises with all of our heart, mind and soul! As Paul puts it in Ephesians 2:8-9, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast."
