Page 55 - GALIET KAFKABEL JOB, KANT AND MILTON: Omnipotence, Impotence and Rebellion IV+

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himself” (3:1-26),313 as if he were a precursor to Milton’s Satan. He certainly places his self-interest and suffering above all others when desiring to end the whole world. Does his desire to destroy the world justify his innocence? Although Job’s apocalyptic desire may stress his righteousness 3⁄4 it is still a sin. Just to contemplate the world’s demise constitutes a sin. In his blessed days, Job, as if a noble priest, burns offerings to atone for any possible sins his offspring may commit (1:5). Job’s author, says Peake, is so keen to impress lectors with Job’s piety that “Job is so scrupulous that he guards against the possibility that sin may be committed.”314 Job certainly “feels the guilt of a sin inthought.”315 IfJobdesirestovanquishtheworld,heisasinnerinhisowneyes.
If Job yearns to wreck-havoc by conjuring up the forces of chaos (a dystopia), Josef K desires to impose the legitimate forces of order (a utopia). Job’s desire to conjure up the negative forces of Leviathan contrasts with K’s struggle to rouse up a positive order, law and judiciary that Milton earnestly defends during King Charles I’s tyranny. While Job desires to annihilate the whole cosmic order by conjuring up irrational chaos 3⁄4 thus sharing all the destructive liberties and traits that Milton repudiates in his Satan’s fabled verse, “evil be thou my good”316 3⁄4 the dark ways of Shakespeare’s Iago, Macbeth and Goethe’s Faust 3⁄4 Josef K and Milton desire to preserve the whole cosmic order by rationally overthrowing tyranny. If Josef K yearns to seize the world with his twenty hands (T230), it is not to wreck it, but to take it apart, examine it, and subvert it and reform it positively. To desire a world without original sin (if a Religious Court), and a world of rights without arbitrary arrests and despotisms (if a Political Court), is to refute the Court’s imprisoning architecture of chaos allegorized in Behemoth’s iron bars (40:16-18), and Leviathan’s spine (41:7).
Behemoth 3⁄4 whose “strength is in his hips; [whose] power is in his stomach muscles, [who] moves his tail like a cedar, [whose] sinews of his thighs are tightly knit; [whose] bones are like beams of bronze, [whose] ribs are like bars of iron” (40:16-18) 3⁄4 allegorizes The Trial’s omnipotent Court. Behemoth’s mighty body and organs are the body politick. Behemoth’s bronze beams and iron bars 3⁄4 the bones of Seth3173⁄4 imprison defendants. They sustain the Court’s architecture of tyranny that devours justice’s flesh and spirit. In the Court’s attic alleyways, the beams and bars of Behemoth gleam.
When Behemoth assaults, the inhumane assaults.
313 See Cox, Dermot. In Job 3, Job desires oblivion. “Job opened his mouth, and cursed his very day.” When Job curses his existence, the reactions of his three friends are exaggerated. Death wishes are prevalent in Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Old Testament literature, and are unlikely to rouse to indignation of three orthodox thinkers, Bildad, Zophar and Eliphaz. In verses 3-10, Job curses his birth in terms of light and darkness, day and night. In verses 11-19, Job asks why existence should be given to him. In verses 20-26, Job asks why life is given at all to the miserable. In Job 3:6-9, the night is cursed with deprivation of light; night’s darkness is prolonged, the stars are dark and do not shine. When Job imposes darkness upon light, he wishes for day never to come into existence at all. If tracing Job to Genesis 1:2-3, primal chaos is an all-pervasive darkness upon the face of the deep. Order is brought out of chaos by God’s word separating light from darkness. Job’s curse “let there be darkness” (Job 3:4) opposes creation. In terms of creation, Job is saying light will never be separated from darkness. In 3:7, 8 and 10, the night is conceived as the womb that brings forth the day. The author of Job is linking the curse on all creation and a curse on his own existence. By cursing the night with the barrenness of a woman, Job negates day entirely. In Job 3:8 “let those curse it, who curse the day, who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan.” To Leveque, Job is calling on those who could, if they wished, conjure up the forces of the abyss.” Dhorme and Weiser affirm Job is calling upon the forces of primal chaos to end the whole world along with him. Those that rouse up Leviathan, magicians and astrologers, are reckless; they will to undo the work of creation. In this way, verse 8 suggests that in cursing the day, Job is being as reckless as those who will to rouse up Leviathan, and that Job is himself aware of it. Job’s curse is more than a simple death wish, says Cox; it revolts against God’s creation. See also Leveque, J. Job et son Dieu. Essai d’Exegese et de Theologie Biblique (EB), 2 vols. Paris, 1970. 336. See also Dhorme, P. Livre de Job. 27ff. Weiser, A. Das Buch Hiob ubersetzt und erklart, ATD, Gottingen, 1956. 40f. 37-42. Cox, Dermot. The Triumph of Impotence. Job and the Tradition of the Absurd. Analecta Gregoriana. Roma: Universita Gregoriana Editrice, 1978. 37-42
314 See Peake’s footnote 5. Peake, A.S. The Century Bible. Job. Ed. By Walter F. Adeney. Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1904. 56-7
315 See Peake’s footnote 5. Peake, A.S. The Century Bible. Job. Ed. By Walter F. Adeney. Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1904. 56-7
316 Milton. Paradise Lost. Book IV. New York: W.W.W. Norton, 1975. 79-103
317 Lang views the second speech of God as the Egyptian version of the chaos battle. In Egyptian mythology, iron was believed to be the “bones of Seth.”
Lang, B. Job XL 18 and the ‘Bones of Seth.’ VT 30 1980. 360-61
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