Page 29 - The Poetic Books - Student Text

feared God all his life. Now in his desperate need wisdom appears to have failed him. He simply
cannot figure out the cause of his agony.

Job is caught. Life does not make sense exactly where it should make sense. He cannot give up
on his expectation of a righteous God. That would make life futile, as expressed by many
Christian philosophers.

“In an irrational and nonmoral universe there would be no problem of evil; it is precisely
because the world is essentially rational and moral that evil becomes a question.
Because truth and justice are more fundamental, more in harmony with what we
conceive the nature of the ultimate to be, we can pronounce any deviation therefrom to
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be unhealthy in a social context and unholy in a religious one.”

Knowing the world and its Creator to be rational and wise and experiencing his life to be
irrational and unwise leaves Job in a horrible dilemma.

Job is a remarkable man in his ethics. He has claimed innocence from the beginning, insisting
that he has done nothing to deserve such suffering. Minor suffering can be the result of minor
sin. Major suffering can be the result of major sin. But where is the justice of God when major
suffering has no major cause?

Most of Job’s life was spent in friendship with God, the Almighty (29:2-5). He was well respected
by old and young alike. He was known as a man who “rescued the poor…and the fatherless along
with the blind, lame, needy, and the stranger (29:12-17).” He expected to live a long time, like a
tree planted by the waters (29: 18-20).

Job did not look lustfully at young women (31:1. He did not practice deceit (31:5). He did not
deny justice to his servants (31:13). He did not trust
in gold and the accumulation of wealth (31:24). He
never secretly worshiped creation (31:26-27). He did
not rejoice over the fall of an enemy (31:29) or play
the hypocrite, hiding his guilt from fear of the crowd
(31:33-34). He has been careful of the land and its
fruit, not devouring it heedlessly for himself (31:38-
39). Over and over he agrees with the theology
requiring punishment for any of these sins. Over and
over he insists on his innocence. “Let God weigh me
in honest [righteous] scales and he will know that I
Figure 16: Weighing People
am blameless (31:6).”

The end of Job’s speech is a fitting summary of the theology expressed so far. “If my land cries
out against me…, then let briers come up instead of wheat…. (31:38-40).” A person reaps what
he sows. “Job’s relation with his neighbor grew from his relationship with God. He lived in

38 H. D. McDonald, The God Who Responds (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1986), 136.
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