James Dunstone contends with the story of Job.
The story of Job occurs about halfway through the Hebrew Bible (for Christians, the Old Testament) and is concerned with a man from Uz (which may be Edom), who is wealthy, healthy and has many children.
Someone called the Accuser attends a meeting of the heavenly beings. In Christian tradition the Accuser, like the serpent in Genesis Chapter 3, is Satan. The LORD (in Christian tradition, God) asks Satan to take note of Job who is righteous and fears God. Satan remarks that Job fears God because God has protected him. God and Satan agree that they will take away Job’s family and possessions (Job himself will not be touched) and watch how he responds. Foreign armies, wind and lightening put the plan into effect. Job expresses despair (tears his robe and shaves his head) but declares that he accepts it is for God to both give and take away. He does not curse God (Satan had claimed that he would).
Satan appears at a subsequent meeting of the heavenly beings. God points out to Satan that Job, despite all that has befallen him, is still a good man who fears God. Satan argues that Job would curse God if he was touched by physical suffering. God agrees to let Satan torment Job and Job is covered in sores. Job’s wife demands that he curse God but he persists in accepting what is bad from God, as in the past he accepted what was good.
Job is visited by three friends who express their sadness (weeping, tearing their robes, putting dust on their heads) and sit with him in silence for seven days. After the week is up Job expresses different feelings towards his trials, detailing to his friends the torment he is going through. Although Job never actually curses God, he does claim that God is treating him unfairly.
Job’s friends respond that the suffering must be punishment for wrongdoing and that Job should confess this to God. Job insists that he has done nothing wrong and that God is being unfair.
Job is then visited by Elihu, a younger man, who is angry that Job is making himself seem more righteous than God. Elihu says that God is always fair but that sometimes we cannot understand his ways. Elihu accuses Job of arrogant sinfulness for suggesting that he understands justice better than God. God then appears to Job in a storm and gives a similar argument to that of Elihu. God asks Job if he understands the movement of the stars, the changes in the wind and the growth of vegetation. He asks Job if he can explain the ways of mysterious beasts such as the behemoth and leviathan or even of familiar creatures such as the ostrich and the eagle.
Job accepts God’s argument and repents of foolishness and arrogance. God restores Job’s fortunes. Job becomes twice as wealthy as before and is blessed with seven new sons and three new daughters who are, we are told, the three most beautiful women in the world. Their names are Keziah, Keren-happuch and Jemimah. That is the end of the story.
The story’s juxtaposition of a name that is now quintessentially English with two that remain thoroughly Hebrew has provided me with some amusement, but the story has also left me agitated. I have four contentions. My first contention is that the divine bargain that brought about Job’s suffering is not hard to understand so why does God not just explain it to Job? My second contention is that God’s argument that it is beyond our ability to understand the natural world (and, it is implied, the behaviour of foreign armies) seems plain wrong. Our knowledge of some of the very matters that Elihu and God detail has helped us understand some of the causes of suffering and to take preventative action.
James Dunstone contends with the story of Job.
In his book, Answer to Job, Carl Jung provides a solution to the fourth contention.
Jung posits that God’s nature changes as a result of his encounter with Job’s fortitude. God starts to admire human beings and makes three crucial decisions. Firstly, God decides to become like humans (hence the incarnation). Secondly, God decides to make reparation to humankind – through the crucifixion – for the suffering that he has caused. This is an extraordinary reversal of Christian doctrine. God’s third decision is to banish his favoured Son, Satan, to the Earth.
Eventually God will have Satan forced into Hell.
God’s banishment of Satan to Earth seems very likely to me, but I disagree with Jung in that I think that it is Satan’s nature, not God’s, that is changed by Job.
In my poem that follows, Satan reveals to Keziah, Keren-happuch and Jemimah his role in their father’s suffering (hence doing something towards dealing with my first contention). Satan (in an echo of his role in the Garden of Eden) has been encouraging the three daughters to seek the forbidden knowledge of the causes of suffering (this is relevant to my second con– tention). The discoveries made by the three daughters have brought Satan to a realistic appreciation of who God is – this is my end to the story, my resolution of my fourth contention.
The poem deals with my third contention too.
The poem is printed on the facing page.
This and other poems by James Dunstone can be found at whathebiblecouldhavesaid.com James is a secondary school teacher of Religious Studies.