The figure of ha-satan (השטן) appears in the introduction to the book of Job as a participant in the Divine Council. Rather than being an inherently or intrinsically evil being, ha-satan’s role appears to be that of a Prosecutor. The discussion of Job’s righteousness is initiated by God and ha-satan responds by challenging the LORD’s policy of rewarding righteousness with prosperity. The LORD does not discount the legitimacy of the challenge and responds by authorising ha-satan to put Job’s righteousness to the test. Thereafter the Book of Job attributes the cause of Job’s sufferings as much to God as to ha-satan.
I said in my previous post that the Adversary/Prosecutor is in fact challenging God’s policies rather than human behaviour; he isn’t acting maliciously against Job. He is the LORD’s adversary, not Job’s. I would like to explore that idea a little further.
I wrote about some ‘unrealistic’ elements in the Prologue. There is a further unrealistic element in the dialogues between the Adversary and the LORD. God responded to the Adversary’s report at their second meeting by saying: “you have incited me against [Job] to destroy him for no good reason” (2:3 JPS). Having admitted to being deceived or tricked by the Adversary (which I believe is the meaning behind “incited”), God then gives his permission for the Adversary to conduct a further trial; practically setting himself up to be tricked again and for the adversary to destroy Job a second time for no good reason. This is more theatre: the reader or listener is drawn further into the plot and the suspense builds as they wait to see if the Almighty can be tricked again!
After his two appearances in the heavenly court the Adversary disappears from the scene. Nowhere is he blamed for Job’s misfortune. On the contrary, Job blamed the LORD for all his miseries: “Your hands shaped and fashioned me, then destroyed every part of me” (11:8 JPS); “The hand of God has struck me!” (19:21 JPS). Even at the end the reader is reminded of “all the misfortune that the LORD had brought upon [Job]” (42:11 JPS).
“The ambivalence … concerning whose hand it is that strikes Job shows that the Satan acts as an agent of [the LORD]”.[1]
Perhaps surprisingly, there is no mention of the Adversary in the epilogue and, while Job acts in a priestly role in offering sacrifices for his three friends who did not speak well of God (42:8), no mention is made of the part the Adversary played. On the contrary, if in fact in the epilogue Job “repents” (42:6 ESV) or recants and relents (JPS), this would suggest that the Adversary was right in his presumption about Job and that he did indeed in some way curse God. The Hebrew of 42:1-6 is uncertain and somewhat ambiguous. While Job confessed his ignorance he “nowhere repents, repudiates his words, or shows any remorse”.[2] The epilogue does, however, imply that the LORD was ‘guilty’ in bringing misfortune on Job. The number of Job’s animals were doubled (and possibly also his sons [3]), and this emphasis on economics and doubling at the end of the epilogue is reminiscent of the Mosaic laws of restitution.
The doubling of Job’s possessions and sons implies legal compensation was paid for the damages incurred.
However, divine culpability is not an easy theological point to swallow [4] and we encounter several unexpected ‘twists’ in the story right at the end. As the prologue was theatrical so too these ‘twists’ in the epilogue are dramatic devises, leaving the audience with a bundle of new questions to answer: did Job repent or not, and if so, why; if Job repented why did the LORD say that Job had spoken well of him (42:7); and why did the LORD pay compensation? To the end Job is unaware of the wager made in heaven between the LORD and his Adversary: only the audience has this knowledge, but it comes with a price of even more puzzles to resolve.
In my next posts I’d like to explore some questions that arise from this:
- Are there any other biblical examples of divine beings acting in a similar way to the Prosecutor in Job? Can divine beings do ‘evil’ things?
- If God is culpable for Job’s suffering, and pays restitution, then what is this saying about the cause of human suffering?
- Did Job repent or not, and if Job repented why did the LORD say that Job had spoken well of him?
Then, I’d like to explore the historical basis for the Job ‘play’ and how it may have come about.
[1] Page, S.H.T., “Satan: God’s Servant” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society; Sep 2007; 50, 3, 452
[2] Guillaume, P., “Dismantling the Deconstruction of Job” in Journal of Biblical Literature; Fall 2008; 127, 3, 494
[3] Job 42:13 says Job was given seven (שבענה) sons and Philippe Guillaume (2008, 492) argues that this is the dual form (i.e. fourteen), quoting Dhorme’s Commentary on the Book of Job, HALOT and Alfred Guillaume’s Studies in the Book of Job. In 1:2 Job had שבעה (seven) sons, so the later dual form suggests his sons were doubled (in the same way as his herds).
[4] Guillaume, 2008, 497
מִקְרָא Mikra: Biblical studies 
Why did the LORD say that Job had spoken well of him?
I am a bit confused here because I always understood line 42:7 as an expression of equivalence comparing Job and his friends. When I translated the Septuagint variant for myself I assumed from preceding context that they were all telling no truth whatsoever about the Lord, the three friends just like Job.
You asked the first question yourself, my answer would be: the Lord didn’t say that, on the contrary.
Hi Clasina. You might these two posts helpful:
Well, thank you. I seem to remember I too followed those avenues when I first tried to make sense of it all. The main problem is we don ‘t know what particular truth is alluded to. Somehow it is that important that the Lord is so angry with the friends that he even threatens to kill them unless they fund Job with an outrageous amount of cattle to sacrifice and pray on their account. When I pondered the disproportionality of these arrangements, I became suspicious. Remembering it was after all satire, I took the cynic’s approach and decided to just follow the money. In my opinion the friends are only used and coerced by the Lord to help Job restore his former position. I’ll explain why.
I first noticed the vocabulary used for sacrifice and prayer:
ποιήσει καρπώσεις can also mean he will make a profit or gain a revenue, εὔξεται can also mean he will boast, and all that on their account which in an ironic context would be at their cost.
In the following account we learn that the Lord even doubles Job’s former wealth and are told how that was accomplished. His brothers and sisters and long time acquaintances came to eat and drink with him and comfort him and wondered about what happened to him and then they paid up a lamb each plus some interest (τετράδραχμον is a generic term for that). Remember they suddenly despised him when he was down and now they flock back like nothing changed, funny twist of fate that is.
Finally it becomes clear here his former wealth was based on two sources: the Lord shielded him from any mishap by fate, his compatriots not so fortunate became indebted to him and he bled them dry. He was a loan-shark and actually a nasty character, a tyrant and inherently egotistic and anti-social. We are subtly suggested that he is amending his ways somewhat after his ordeal though, at least he is sharing meals with his clients, like a more benevolent patron would do, and he puts his new children on a better track to keep them away from the drunken debauchery of his former brood of good-for-nothing parasites. They all marry and give him wholesome offspring as every grandparent wishes for. It is a great story, and superb satire with economic and social components that sort of remind me of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. I wonder if Dickens was inspired by the book of Job.
Well,well, I see on closer inspection I made the mistake assuming the Lord was angry with Job’s friends because the MT told us so. The LXX account leaves that notion out of the story. I took the line where he says he only spares them from destruction because of Job as a consequence of that anger and as a threat, but I was mistaken. In fact it is a reassurance and an appeal to reason and fairness and ultimately to their friendship. I took the liberty translating and reinterpreting it as follows:
εἰ μὴ γὰρ δι᾽ αὐτόν, ἀπώλεσα ἂν ὑμᾶς
“because if it were not for his sake I would have ruined you.”
The point is that the Lord holds up Job as a mirror to the other kings. They are just like Job and grew rich because they were lucky so far. But they were spared the adverse fate of Job and now, being his friends, it just stands to reason they help him on his feet again. It is just a friendly suggestion, not really threatening but even so it could have been one of them instead. It is not retribution, but redistribution. The best insurance against misfortune is when good friends help you out when it strikes you. Job himself was a terrible helper to his brothers and sisters and neighbours, forcing them into debt and out of their possessions with his loansharkings and became a tyrant to them.
But the good thing is after his humiliating ordeal and his recovery to prosperity with the help from his friends he continues his business as usual, but this time he invites his clients to his table and feeds and entertains them in a friendly manner and in return they cordially pay of their old debts. A cute little detail in the Greek text is the wording καὶ τετράδραχμον χρυσοῦ καὶ ἀσήμου. It actually means they also paid interest in gold, but only an insignificant amount. That further strengthens the feeling that socio-economic harmony was restored in Job’s universe. What a beautiful happy end.
Jen, you have asked some great questions and I’d be very interested to hear any ideas you have yourself. I plan to post some thoughts tomorrow about how I think the Book of Job came about and the questions it’s exploring and attempting to answer, but would love to hear your ideas in the meantime.
I like your comment/question about Job being a ‘star witness’. You may be aware that Norman Habel described the whole of the book of Job as ‘a legal metaphor’ and Robert Sutherland develops the idea further in “Putting God on Trial”.
This is one of the reasons I think Job is ‘theatre’ – it’s a courtroom drama if you like. Job is the main character, but the play is not really ‘about’ Job: it is about suffering and why God allows it (or inflicts it?). The writer uses the character of Job as a vehicle for exploring the questions that surround this and through some interesting ‘twists’ arrives at the answers, or leaves us with even more questions.
A secular, modern work, modeled on the book of Job, is Elie Wiesel’s play ‘The Trial of God’, which also explores the idea of justice in regards to suffering (of the Jewish people particularly rather than that of an individual).
I will be interested to read about Job’s ‘repentance’ (for what does he repent?).
Would it be fair to say that Job is the ‘object’ of the controversy, rather than the subject itself: that Job is the (hapless) ‘star witness’ (either by his success or failure) to settle the controversy?