There are some Bible stories that are so familiar that we think we know them, but we really don’t. The Book of Job is one of them.

The Book of Job is so challenging that I spent a week reading translations, both ancient and modern, commentary after commentary, as well as some amazing poetry inspired by this ancient text.

Job addresses the perennial question: why do bad things happen to good people. Where is God in our suffering? As liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez writes, “The Book of Job does not claim to have found a rational or definitive explanation of suffering.” It is a sacred text that leaves us with more questions than answers.

Written for a highly educated Jewish audience, Job is a dramatic poem bookended by a popular folktale. The prologue tells a story that sets the stage for a profound drama involving God, a member of the heavenly court named Ah-Satan (not to be confused with Satan, the devil), a righteous man named Job, his unnamed wife, his children, and his friends. The epilogue offers a settlement without resolve.

The storyline is simple. Job was a just, wise, humble and charitable man. His wealth and virtue aroused jealousy and curiosity in the divine consort. So one day, Ah-Satan (whose name derives from the Hebrew word for “obstruction” or “opposition”) asked God if he could test Job’s righteousness and fidelity. God gave permission but insisted that Ah-Satan not physically harm him. So Ah-Satan arranged for Job’s animals and children to be killed. Upon learning of his tragic loss, Job fell to the ground in grief but did not blame or insult God. In other words, he didn’t fail the test.

Not satisfied with this outcome, Ah-Satan returned to God and requested that he might test Job’s righteousness even more. Once again, God gave the go-ahead for further testing but again insisted that Job’s life be spared. So Ah-Satan struck Job with a terrible skin disease.

Upon witnessing her husband’s suffering, Job’s unnamed wife encouraged him to blame God, but our protagonist remained faithful. She then vanished from the story. Maybe she left Job in his time of need, maybe Job sent her away, or maybe she was struck down for lack of faith. We’re not told.

Four friends visited Job and offered consolation. They also urged him to give up his piety, but stubborn Job remained steadfast in his faith.

In the epilogue, God showed up, scolded the friends for their bad advice, and rewarded Job for his fidelity, giving him a new home, new fortune, a new wife, and new children.

The traditional moral of the tale is this: when you are faced with hard times, don’t be tempted to relinquish your faith in God. God has reasons beyond your understanding for what God is doing, and if you hold on to your faith long enough, God will reward you for your suffering.

We know this story and its teaching, all too well. It is a popular perspective on suffering. I’ve heard it over and over again in my ministry. I heard it as my mother was dying with dementia, and I’ve heard variations on it since receiving my own dementia diagnosis.

However, within the actual Biblical text, there is a very long and complicated poem that tells another story of Job. Sitting in the dust, surrounded by his friends, scratching his boils, Job cursed the day he was born and the night he was conceived. He then reproached God for his suffering. His friends, each in their own inept way, using traditional moral reasoning, tried to dissuade Job from getting angry with God. One insisted that he deserved his misfortune; another said that Job should not expect God to explain the divine self; the third accused Job of blasphemy; and the fourth suggested that God sometimes causes suffering as a form of character building.

In the midst of Job’s suffering, we find this passage, which contains words of comfort that we share at the beginning of nearly every funeral:

For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that at the last will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then in my flesh I shall see God . . . (19.25-26)

As comforting as these words sound at the graveside, that was not Job’s intention. Job was actually saying this: God, I’m an innocent man who is being falsely punished and tortured. Someday, my defender will show up and convince you that I don’t deserve this suffering.

Throughout the poem, Job insisted upon his innocence and maintained that he was being unjustly punished. Eventually, he had the audacity to use an old legal tactic with God: take me to court and produce evidence against me, or drop the charges.

Job’s words were so compelling and forceful that God responded directly to his summons. However, God didn’t address the issue at hand. Instead, out of the whirlwind, God asked: “Who are you to challenge me? Where were you when I created the world?” Thus commences one of the most powerful monologues in the Bible, basically informing Job of just how hard it is to be God. Talk about being put in your place.

In the ancient text, Job was taken aback by God’s forceful — perhaps, even bullying — presence and belittling words. He responded to God with frustration, exhaustion, and resignation:

How can I answer you without being disrespectful? I’ve already said too much.
I’m just gonna shut up. (40.4-5)

However, God was not finished talking with Job. Out of the whirlwind, God spoke again with power and might:

Man up!
I ask you:
Will you go so far as to breach my justice?
Accuse me of wrong so that you’re in the right? (40.7-8)

I don’t know about you, but I’d be quivering in my sandals. However, Job did not back down. In fact, he had the final word:

Truly I’ve spoken without comprehending
Wonders that are beyond me.
But I’ve heard you,
And now I’ve seen you. (42.3-5)

And here’s where the text gets complicated. The traditional interpretation is that Job’s final words express remorse and repentance:

Therefore I despise myself,
And repent in dust and ashes. (42.3-6 - NRSV)

Other scholars suggest that Job conveyed contempt toward and disappointment with God and compassion and sorrow for humanity. In his new commentary, Edward Greenstein of Yale University offers this translation of Job’s last words:

I am fed up; and
I take pity on dust and ashes (42.3-6)

Greenstein insists that Job did not acquiesce to God, but rather, he expressed “disdain for the deity” and “pity toward humankind.”

In the end, Job came to accept that suffering is part of life and that God sometimes allows it or chooses not to stop it. He also concluded that God is beyond human understanding and accountability. And he learned that God shows up in the midst of suffering. But was Job remorseful or resentful? We don’t really know.

Did he ever make peace with God? We don’t know that, either. However, in the epilogue, after Job is restored to good fortune, he interceded with God on behalf of his old friends.

Whether or not Job and God were reconciled remains a mystery. But this much we know: God permitted his servant to be tested, and God allowed him to suffer. God met Job in his anguish, spoke to him with directness and candor, listened to his words, restored him to good fortune, and answered his prayer of justice and compassion for his misdirected companions.

Regardless of how God allowed his suffering or how his friends reacted to it, Job didn’t give up or give in. Rather, in the words of Elie Weisel, who witnessed and experienced the most extreme form of suffering in the Holocaust, “In solitude and despair, [Job] found the courage to stand up to God. And to force [God] to look at His creation.”

What does the story of Job say to those who are suffering in body, mind, or spirit? In the first place, we learn that it’s not our fault. Bad things happen to good people. Why? Who knows? Your guess is as good as mine.

Secondly, we learn that it’s okay to get angry, even at God. God can handle our emotions, including anger. As a community organizer, I learned that while it’s not healthy to be consumed by rage, anger is an essential ingredient in productive and creative action. When I was diagnosed with dementia, both Emily and I got angry, and it took time for us to move beyond our anger. But out of that anger has come acceptance and new life.

Thirdly, we learn that friends and family, well-meaning as they want to be in their concern and support, often don’t get it, and thus say all the wrong things. As Job’s friends and family never seemed to understand, sometimes it’s more supportive and helpful to just be present and listen rather than to offer misinformed consolation and misguided advice.

Finally, we learn that perhaps God, who is beyond all human understanding, whose ways are clearly not our ways, doesn’t or can’t stop what has been put in motion. Perhaps God is not all-powerful but rather all-present and all-loving.

There’s a story from the Holocaust that illustrates this point. An old man was digging out a filthy latrine as a Nazi guard stood over him. The guard said to the old man, “Now, where is your God?” The old man replied, “Right here in the muck with me.”

I don’t blame God for my condition. God didn’t cause it. However, I want and need to believe that God is in the muck with me and will not abandon me as my dementia advances. Like Job, whose faith, wisdom, endurance, and chutzpah offer me comfort and encouragement, “I am convinced that my redeemer lives and at the last will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh, I shall see God.”

And when I do, I have a lot of questions to ask.

References - For thoughtful perspectives on The Book of Job

Edward Greenstein, Job: A New Translation (2019)
Elie Wiesel, Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits and Legends (1976)
Harold Kushner, What Bad Things Happen to Good People (1981)
Dorothee Soelle, Suffering (1975)
Gustavo Gutierrez, On Job: God Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent (1987)
Gerald Janzen, Job: Interpretation Commentary (1997)
Anna Kamieńska, “The Second Happiness of Job et al” Astonishments: Selected Poems (2018)
John Berryman, “From Job,” Poetry Magazine (April, 1980)
Robert Frost, “God’s Speech to Job,” A Masque of Reason (1945)
James Parker, “And Job said unto the Lord, ‘You Can’t be Serious’” (The Atlantic, September 2019)