The book of Job has been a great source of help in my family’s journey of dealing with suffering and death. It helps to know not all suffering is due to sin—this helps comfort us in our struggle.
Sin and suffering are like conjoined twins; they are extremely difficult to separate. Even though it is well recognized that the book of Job corrects the assumption that all suffering is retribution for sin, many still want to relate Job’s sufferings to sin.
Suffering from sin?
One suggestion is that Job’s suffering was not a punishment for acts of sin but the loving action of God to remove Job’s pride. God knew Job would respond in pride; “the suffering has brought out the hidden sin of pride in Job,” thus allowing God to deal with it.1
But this view contradicts the statements of the narrator and God that Job was “upright, blameless, fearing God, and turning from evil” (1:1, 10; 2:3 NASB). The view also contradicts the narrator’s assertion that Job did not sin as a result of his suffering (2:10).
Lamentation as sin?
Another view is that although Job did not suffer because of his sins, nevertheless, in his suffering, he sinned in his speeches.2 This view points to evidence of Job’s sin in the following:
- Speeches of Job: He accuses God of being unjust.
- Speeches of Elihu: He faults Job for claiming to be?guiltless and charging God with injustice (33:8–11;?34:5–9). Whereas God charges the three friends with?error, Elihu is excluded.3
- God rebukes Job for darkening counsel (38:2) and?justifying himself more than God. God refuses to?answer Job’s questions. Instead, he asks a series of?questions to show his greatness and Job’s?insignificance.
- Job’s confession in 42:1–6, where he says, “I repent in?dust and ashes.”
The above view that Job was wrong in his speeches and should not have said them is problematic. Recently, several scholars have pointed out that Job’s speeches must be seen as lamentations like those in the Psalms and Lamentations.4 A lamentation must be judged not based on the propositional truths of each statement, but like poetic speech, it must be evaluated on whether the emotions and intentions are appropriate to the situation. If so, to argue that Job was wrong and his speeches should not have been said is to argue that the lamentations in the Bible and even by our Lord on the cross (Matt 27:46) were wrong.
God’s questioning of Job cannot be said to be a rebuke of Job. Similar questions can be found in Isaiah 40–55. In that context, the questions are part of comfort. Asking Job questions and inviting Job to answer them is an answer to Job’s request for God to engage in question and answer:
The intention of the Yahweh speeches is not to establish Job’s guilt or sin. William Dumbrell expresses this well when he concludes, “There is no hint in these speeches that Job is being treated as a sinner; rather, he is being treated as one whose horizons need to be expanded.” Job has not shown a lack of respect for God, but simply that he has limited knowledge of how God orders his world. The playful tone of the Yahweh speeches confirms this.5
When God says, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (38:2), this is not a rebuke. Working on the basis of the retribution principle, Job did not know why he was suffering so severely when other people were getting away with worse evil. He wanted explanations. The counsel he received from the three friends was rightly rejected by Job. They wrongly assumed Job’s sufferings were due to sin and that by turning to God, all would be well.
God’s comfort in suffering
Then, the speeches of God, although in the form of questions, are not void of content. I have found the words appropriate and comforting. God shows in various ways he provides for his creatures and grants his creatures the attitude to go through hardship and the courage to face danger and death(39:13-28); God is in control of the evil mythic monsters that humans fear because of the chaos and harm they cause, and also sets limits for them (40:15–41:34).6
Elihu accused Job of adding rebellion to his sin by demanding to appear before God (34:37). But God proved Elihu wrong by immediately appearing to Job after Elihu says God is too great to be found and to appear to Job (37:23–24).
Contrary to what is translated as “I repent,” Job’s confession should be translated as “I am comforted” (42:6).7 All occurrences of this Hebrew word in the book of Job has to do with comfort (2:11; 7:13; 16:2; 21:34; 29:25; 42:11). Although these occurrences are in the intensive (Piel) form, whereas in 42:6, it is in the passive (Niphal) form, the passive form can also mean “comfort” as it does in Genesis 24:67 and 38:12.8
God’s vindication in suffering
More importantly, God vindicated Job for his speech. When God rebuked Eliphaz and his two friends, he says twice, “You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (42:7–8). This phrase should be more appropriately translated as “You have not spoken to me rightly as my servant Job has.”9 Also, Job did utter certain words that were not correct; he was wrong in saying that God was unjust (9:22–24). The Hebrew word translated as “What is right” is in the passive and should be translated as “to be corrected” or as “to be established.”10
When Job could not find an answer from his friends, he repeatedly asked to talk to God to be vindicated or corrected. God’s appearances fulfilled Job’s requests in 13:5; 16:19, 19:25–29. God’s appearance to Job in 38:1 proved Elihu was wrong to say Job was too insignificant to question God:
God’s final endorsement of Job’s speeches … silences the cant of those who remind us of the inscrutability of God and smugly say, “It is not for us to question the ways of the Almighty!” For that is precisely what Job does, and God says that he was fully justified in doing so. The Lord welcomes this exercise of moral judgement from man’s side, even when it is directed in judgement on God himself.11
God’s wisdom in suffering
At the centre of the book is a poem asking, “Where can wisdom be found?” (28:1–28, v. 12). The poem ends with “the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding” (v. 28). From the start of the book, Job has been declared as one who fears God and turns from evil (1:1). Job’s rejection of the speeches of his friends and his speeches of lament to God shows us he knew where wisdom is to be found. He found it in God. The words of God can be appropriately summed up as, “I am God, I care deeply, and I want you to trust me.”12
For Discussion
- What were the mistakes of Job’s friends? How can we avoid? their mistakes?
- What possible good can come out of having to go through? intense or unjust suffering?
1 John Piper, “Job: The Revelation of God in Suffering,” Desiring God, last modified July 28, 1985, accessed December 28, 2023, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/job-the-revelation-of-god-in-suffering.
2 Lindsay Wilson, Job, The Two Horizons Old Testament commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 13.
3 ?douard Dhorme. A Commentary on the Book of Job, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1984), liv-lvii; Robert L. Alden, Job, New American Commentary 11 (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 1993), 366.
4 Will Kynes, “Debating Suffering: The Voices of Lamentations Personified in Job’s Dialogue,” in Reading Lamentations Intertextually, ed. Heath A. Thomas and Brittany N. Melton, Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 714 (London: T&T Clark, 2021), 170–182.
5 Lindsay Wilson, Job, 180.
6 John H. Walton, Job, NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 443–44.
7 Daniel J. O’Connor, “Job’s Final Word—‘I Am Consoled …’ (42:6b),” Irish Theological Quarterly 50, nos. 2–4 (June 1983): 181–197.
8 O’Connor argues that the exact phrase in Job 42:6 is also found in Jer 31:15; 16:7; Ezek 14:22, showing that it has to do with being comforted or consoled. Also, the phrase “dust and ashes” does not necessarily indicate repentance, because Job in 30:19 was already “as dust and ashes.”
9 Manfred Oeming, “Ihr Habt Nicht Recht von Mir Geredet Wie Mein Knecht Hiob” [“You have not spoken to me as well as mine servant Job”], Evangelische Theologie 60, no. 2 (2000): 103–116. 10 Gerald H. Wilson, Job, New International Biblical Commentary
10 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 472. Wilson rightly points out that the term translated as “right” means “established as correct” in Hebrew.
11 Francis I. Andersen, “The Problems of Suffering in the Book of Job,” in Sitting with Job: Selected Studies on the Book of Job, ed. Roy B. Zuck (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2003), 181–188 (183).
12 Walton, Job, 442–44.
