When was the book of Job written?

Question

True Bible Answers · Accepted Answer

Job never dates itself, and no verse in it names its writer, so every answer to this question is built from clues inside the book. Commentators broadly agree the events belong to the earliest age of the Bible's history, while the writing down of them is usually placed later — many say around the time of Moses.

Scripture Leaves the Writer Unnamed

Before weighing any theory, it helps to see how little the Bible itself settles. One writer lists the names that have been proposed across the centuries and refuses to close the case:

Over the course of time the following authors have been suggested: Job himself, Moses, Solomon, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Baruch. But all these suggestions are uncertain. The oldest suggestion dates the book as far back as the time of Moses or even before Moses. In any case the events occurring in the book would indicate a very early time of origin.

Arend Remmers

The Signs of the Patriarchal Age

The strongest evidence is the world the book describes. One survey gathers the marks together — Job's lifespan, the kind of idolatry mentioned, the name for God that runs through it, and the fact that Job offers sacrifice himself with no priest involved:

Job must have been nearly a century old, if not more, when the Lord opened the controversy with Satan about His servant. The patriarch then had seven grown-up sons, for they had houses of their own, and three daughters, while after his trial he lived a hundred and forty years. Does not this long life conclusively point to a time certainly not later, if not earlier, than the days of Abram? This is further confirmed by a reference to the earliest form of idolatry, that of the heavenly bodies (Job 31:26-27), the only kind mentioned in the book, and further by the frequency of the patriarchal title "the Almighty," which occurs more often here than in any other book of Scripture.

Walter Scott

That same evidence sets a lower boundary as well as an upper one. Idolatry places the book after the flood, and the family setting places it before Israel existed as a nation:

The longevity of Job and his priestly action as head of the family (his historic reality being confirmed by Ezekiel in the Old Testament and by James in the New) point to patriarchal times: after Abraham and before the Exodus would seem to be the limits, if indeed Moses himself did not write the book.

William Kelly

What the Book Never Mentions

Silence is part of the argument. A whole world of later Israelite religion is simply absent from these forty-two chapters:

That he must have lived in patriarchal days is proven by the contents of the book itself. We have no mention in this book of the law, nor of the levitical institutions, priesthood and sacrifices. (Sacrifices are mentioned at the beginning and the end of the book, but no priest is indicated. It is the primitive way of approaching God by a sacrifice.) Nothing is said of the history of Israel, nor is there a quotation from the writings of the prophets. We are clearly moving in this book in a time before the law was given and before Abraham's seed became a nation.

Arno Clemens Gaebelein

The Evidence of the Language

Critics have used Job's unusual Hebrew to argue for a late date. One writer turns that argument around:

The Hebrew of the book of Job is in style not the Hebrew of a later, but of very early times… They are not in reality Chaldeisms, but rather Arabicisms, and are proof of very great antiquity in the book, showing that it was composed when Hebrew and Arabic had not yet diverged.

Arno Clemens Gaebelein

Why Moses Is the Common Suggestion

If Job lived before Moses, someone later still had to record the story. The narrative frame at the start and finish speaks of God as Jehovah, while the speeches inside do not — which suggests a writer looking back. One writer adds a clue from a name in the text and a plausible window in Moses' own life:

Nothing in the book indicates who the writer was, but the reference to Elihu, "the son of Barachel the Buzite," might place the date about the time of Moses, for Buz was the son of Nahor, the brother of Abraham… Moses could well have written Genesis and Job during his forty years in Arabia. He was "instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," which was doubtless used by God to prepare His servant for his future service.

An Outline of Sound Words

Where Commentators Differ

Not all agree. Some link the book to a much later period of Israel's history:

Others have associated the book with the writers of Solomon's time, and it cannot be denied that there is much in its pages that reminds us of Solomon in Proverbs.

Samuel Ridout

Others hold the antiquity firmly but decline to be dogmatic, since the book "affords no direct proof" of its own date and everything must be drawn from internal evidence.

One Last Confusion

Job's position in most Bibles, sitting after Esther, misleads readers about its age:

The Historical Books run from Genesis to Esther — that is the end; then we begin the Poetic Books — Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. So we necessarily go back here, because poetry was written certainly not after history but alongside it.

William Kelly

Summary

- Unnamed. Scripture never states who wrote Job, so every proposal — Job, Moses, Solomon, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Baruch — is inference, not revelation.

- Ancient. Job's near-century of age before his trial, and 140 years after it, points to a time no later than Abraham's.

- Pre-law. No law, no Levitical priesthood, no Israel, no prophets — the book moves in a world before the nation existed.

- Bounded. Idolatry places it after the flood; the family-priest sacrifices place it before the Exodus.

- Recorded. The likeliest human writer is Moses or a contemporary, possibly during his forty years in Midian — the story older than the pen that wrote it.