Book of Job - Bible Survey

The book divides naturally into five parts, of unequal length, which seem to correspond in theme with the numerical significance of their order. The first and last of these divisions are historical, very brief and concise, giving us the introduction and the conclusion; these are written in prose. The main part of the book is poetry of a high order, rising into the sublime, and tender in many of its parts. Three divisions are found here: the controversy of Job and his friends, the testimony of Elihu, and the answer of Jehovah. The five divisions may therefore be given as follows: Job 1, 2. The historical introduction: Job's piety and prosperity; his sufferings at the hand of Satan — in his possessions, his family and his person. Job 3 — 31. The controversies of Job and his three friends, exhibiting the futility of human reason in explaining God's ways in affliction, and the deep-rooted self-righteousness of man's heart. Job 32 — 37. The manifestation of God's character of holiness and of mercy, as exhibited inthe testimony of Elihu. Job 38 — 42:6. Jehovah's testimony from creation, testing Job and bringing him into the dust. Job 42:7-17. "The end of the Lord:" the result of the divine ways with Job, restoring him to greater blessing than before.

Then begins the main portion of the book when the three friends of Job, having heard of his affliction, come to comfort him. Three times each delivers himself of an address, except Zophar who speaks only twice. And eight times Job answers. The subject of the controversy is the mystery of suffering. The result of this lengthy controversy is tersely stated in chapter 32:2-3. Job through it all justified himself rather than God; the three friends with all their fine orations had not found an answer and yet had condemned Job. Then comes the great testimony of Elihu; this is followed by the words which Jehovah speaks. Then after Job is in the dust and cries out "Behold I am vile, I abhor myself!" comes an epilogue. The storm is gone; the sun breaks through the receding storm clouds and the book ends with the Lord blessing the latter end of Job more than his beginning.

The book of Job is a "link and frame story". The beginning (chap. 1+2) and the end (chap. 42:7-17) are written in prose whereas the speeches in between are written in the form of poems. Hebrew poetry is very different to the western poetry. Hebrew poetry is not marked by metre and end-rhyme but by pictorial language, parallelisms and partly by rhythm and alliteration or stave rhyme (compare "The Psalms", paragraph 3a "Hebrew Poetry"). The subject of the book of Job is God's dealings with mankind in His governmental ways in a world in which Satan, the adversary of God, has introduced sin, suffering and death. Nevertheless these ways of God with mankind have always a good purpose (Romans 8:28).

There are five major divisions in the book. Chapters 1 and 2 give a historical introduction. Chapters 3 to 31 record the controversies between Job and his three friends. Chapters 32-37 record the testimony of Elihu. Chapters 38-42:6 give the words of the Lord in reference to His great glory in creation; and finally the last section displays "the end of the Lord," that is, the wonderful result of God's dealings in restoring Job to greater blessing than ever before.

Job (meaning "the cry of woe") is poetic, and has long been honored for its superb language. Job evidently lived about the time of Abraham. Though the most righteous man on earth, he was allowed by God to suffer intensely under the hand of Satan. His three friends assumed that to merit such suffering Job must have been guilty of flagrant hidden sin, and in their speeches they seek, gently at first, then more cruelly, to extort some such confession from him. Job protests his own innocence, and feels that God's dealings with him are without reason.

With this chapter the long and tedious controversy between Job and his three visitors begins. His pitiful lamentation brings forth the addresses of his friends. Eliphaz and Bildad speak thrice, each answered by Job, and Zophar twice with corresponding rebuttals by Job. Job delivers his last word, the lengthy speech of chapters 27-31 in which he gives a summary of what he contended for, namely, his own integrity, but the problem of his suffering remains unexplained.

The controversy is progressive. The thought which the three friends follow is that all suffering is the result of the justice of God and therefore punitive. For this principle they contend in a dogmatic way. As the controversy continues they become more harsh, suspicious and finally almost abusive. Job's answers are first marked by despair; then hope enters in. In a measure he rises above his sufferings in answering his friends in a sharp way. He has the last word, but, as already stated, the mystery and problem of his suffering is not cleared up.

In the controversy of the three friends we have a unity of thought, based on a common principle. That principle is that all suffering is of a punitive rather than of an instructive nature; that it is based on God's justice rather than on His love — though these are ever combined in all His ways. Such a principle necessarily fails to distinguish between the sufferings of the righteous and those of the wicked. Carried, as the friends did carry it, to its legitimate conclusion, this principle meant that Job's sufferings were for sin, hitherto undetected, and that his only hope for relief was in a confession of his sin in order to obtain mercy.

On his part, Job evidently has but little advantage over his friends as to the principle upon which they base their addresses. He too sees that punishment is for evil, eventually for actual sin. Indeed, he takes common ground with them and states with fully as much clearness and force the certainty of the doom of the wicked, both now and hereafter. But Job differs from his friends in this: while they steadily tend to a conviction of his hypocrisy and sin, Job faces the awful thought of God's injustice. He is led to this by the consciousness of personal rectitude, which he cannot relinquish in the darkest hour. Why then is he so afflicted? On the other hand, thank God, he has true faith. Even where he cannot understand, he must believe in God; and this faith remains, with increasing light, through all his sufferings and in spite of all mysteries.

There is a distinct progress in this twofold controversy. The friends, beginning with a measure of courtesy and kindliness, are carried forward into ever-increasing suspicion, harshness and denunciation. Job, on the other hand, though overwhelmed at the first, gradually finds a footing for his faith, and emerges from despair into a measure of hope. He thus answers Satan's accusation, and God is vindicated by the faith of His servant; He can go on then to teach him, painful though it was, the lesson he so deeply needed.

The friends of Job were all astray in their judgments of the ways of God with His servant. They knew not, nor did Job, of what had taken place in heaven between God and Satan, and were as ignorant as Satan of God’s purpose in allowing His righteous servant to undergo such severe trial. The friends of Job thought that he must be guilty of some secret sin of some enormity to be brought into such a plight. Job was also ignorant of the reason for the trial until God brought him into His presence, though he knew much more of God’s ways than his three friends. In the trial we see the endurance of Job, but also the patient way in which God achieves the desired end, and as we are told, we learn “that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy” (James 5:11).

Job was a saint who must have lived somewhere in the patriarchal times, because of the length of his life perhaps towards the end of the patriarchal times. In the first chapter of the book we find that he was a man “perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil” (Job 1:1). We may say that none of us is perfect but it isn't just that kind of perfection that the Holy Scripture means when it talks about a man being perfect, even in the Old Testament. It means a man of integrity. When a believer's path is set in the way of obedience to God, that is an integrity. When a man of godly integrity sins it doesn't destroy his integrity because he goes to God in confession and self judgment as David did, who in spite of his sins was a man after God's heart. Job was a man of integrity in that sense of the word. There are other indications that Job was a saint in another sense, because he was a man of faith. When his trial began to be bitterly felt and expressed by him he said “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:15). He was a man who in spite of his suffering was entirely in subjection to the will of God. He complained that he didn't understand, he complained that he wanted to know the reason, he even thought that God was unjust to him, but he didn't give up his integrity, his devotion to God. Perhaps the clearest pointer to his being a saint is his confession in chapter nineteen when he says with the words driven out of him by his sufferings “Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me” (Job 19:23-27). The only way to knowledge in a matter like this is faith in the testimony of God. We have no idea how the testimony of these truths came to Job, but they did come to him and he believed them. When he said “I know that my Redeemer liveth” it was a rudimentary statement about his knowledge of the Saviour who was then to come, but it is a very wonderful one. He might have said “the Redeemer liveth” but in this difficult passage there is nothing more certain than the personal pronoun “my”. We can see that there was not the slightest question of a doubt regarding his future. It was the present that was Job's trouble and it might be like that with us. We are quite certain of our future but O how sufferings can distress us at the present time. Job knew of his own link with his Redeemer by the use of the pronoun “my”. Job knew that he himself was going to see Him. There has been a great deal of learned argument and discussion about the very difficult question of the text and translation at this point. I sometimes think that perhaps the translators always make out a sentence to be a perfectly grammatical whole and wonder why we cannot see here a succession of sobs. “My Redeemer liveth … He shall stand at last upon the earth … after my skin … destroy this body … in my flesh I shall see God”. Though you miss out the intervening words the certainty is as clear as ever. Job is going to see God in resurrection and this has been the hope of the righteous from the dawn of history. We may rejoice that although our knowledge of the Saviour is so much fuller than Job's was and there has been brought to us the fulness of the truth that surrounds Him where He is at the right hand of God in heavenly glory, yet in the end Job's faith was such that he was brought through to a true prosperity.

In coming back to read the book of Job there are two things that have struck me very strongly. The first is that right to the very end of the book Job never knew about that interview between God and Satan that began it all. Job wanted to understand and in the end he was given the understanding that was necessary, “ … now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6). The real origin of the calamities that came upon him he never knew. Neither is there any promise that we shall know the origins of the distresses that come upon us. The purpose of them we might know but when you read the story it is a staggering fact that Job never knew that it was all started by God when Satan came into His presence among the sons of God. The other very striking thing is when, in the end, all the cloud of words had died away and Jehovah answers Job out of the whirlwind. What will He say? How will He explain the things that Job's friends have failed to explain? How will He complete the explanations that were begun by Elihu? He didn't do it! Not one word of explanation of Himself did God utter. Not one word to answer the questions that Job had asked. His words were entirely concerned with the things of this earth and nature. The Lord spoke of the inanimate things, the sea and the earth and the storm, and then the animate things, the beasts and the birds. Then, right at the end, He speaks about Leviathan. There was not one word of a spiritual kind but the presence of God was in the word and it brought Job to know himself. That was the end of the Lord, to bring Job through to true prosperity by realising the presence of the Lord. The real problem for Job had been that although he was a saint, although he could say “I know that my Redeemer liveth” he was not really habituated to the effect of the presence of God. Think of statements made in Old Testament days by those who realised the presence of God. Isaiah: “ … Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isa. 6:5). Think of Elijah and the still small voice and the voice that said to him “What doest thou here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:13). In the presence of God he realised that he had to condemn himself and get back to the work that God had given him to do. We have so many examples and Job is one of the clearest.