Job 1:1; 2:1-10 Commentary

Once Upon a Time…

Love it or hate it, Job rarely allows a neutral reading.  However, we can, perhaps, safeguard against the worst interpretations by stopping at the outset to clarify the text’s genre.  According to Hebrew scholar, Robert Alter, the interpretive key may be found in the very first verse: “A man there was in the land of Uz” would have likely been a clue to the original audience that we are in the territory of fable.  A regular story would begin with the more expected and normal, “There was a man.” In this case, however, the author uses “A man there was.” These are the opening words that the prophet Nathan uses to begin his story of a beloved lamb, his way of trapping David into realizing his own sin and culpability.

Another clue to the parable or wisdom literature nature of the story is the location: Uz.  While some have sought to put a pin in a map for this location, the better method, according to Alter, is to see this as a kind of “never-never land somewhere to the east, as befits the fable and the universalizing thrust of the whole book.”  He adds, for our consideration, the etymology of “Ur” which, “in Hebrew means ‘counsel’ or ‘advice’ (inviting) one to construe this as the Land of Counsel.”

Read Suffering Stories with the Suffering

The subsequent insights come from The Africana Bible Commentary and, specifically, the contributions of two scholars of South African and African American heritage, respectively.

Solidarity with and for the Suffering

For a chapter in a book on Job and the Suffering of God, scholar E. Dussel reads Job through his own context in El Salvador in order to come up with a communal reading.  It is not an uncommon feature of Hebrew literature for a person to stand in for a people (remember Esther on behalf of her people, for example.  Or the name God gives to Jacob — Israel — becoming the name of the whole people of God, “The one who wrestles with God.” Now, God’s people wear the name of one man, “Christians.”)

According to Dussel, “In this sense, Job can equally be a person, or a people. There can be a collective Job, a Job-community. A suffering, persecuted, crucified Job-people.” Imagine the power of this interpretive lens for a Nigerian church that has just had its building burned down or an illegal house-church in China or Saudi Arabia. This approach also builds empathy and solidarity among Christians who are not immediately suffering for their faith.  Here we can step aside to learn from the wisdom of others.

Suffering and Sovereignty

The intention of the doctrine of God’s sovereignty is certainly intended as a great comfort.  In my own tradition, we profess with the words of the Heidelberg Catechism that God’s creation and providence help us in that “we can be patient when things go against us, thankful when things go well, and for the future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that nothing in creation will separate us from his love. For all creatures are so completely in God’s hand that without his will they can neither move nor be moved.”

However, according to Duquoc and Floristan, Job “destroys the neat arrangement devised by some adherents of the religion of Israel to reject painful questions. It disturbs the harmony of biblical teaching about God’s plan. . .It refuses to soften what everyone seeks to control, suffering and misfortune.”

To that end, scholar Rodney S. Sadler suggests “Perhaps his (Job’s) story is most troubling because this good man’s change of fortunes comes about because of the will of YHWH, the God in whom he has placed his trust. How frightening the first two chapters of Job are, for though they posit that God is in control of human lives, the reasons for the suffering that God apparently allows remain beyond our understanding.”

Illustration Idea:

In the 1960s musical, Fiddler on the Roof, by Joseph Stein, which was made into a movie the following decade, humble and long-suffering Tevye often talks out the details of his life with God as Tevye makes his way along his milk delivery route. On one occasion, Tevye recounts the local pograms (persecution of Jews in Russia) as well as his own daily sufferings — a lame horse, many headstrong daughters to marry off — and he asks God, “I know we are Your chosen people but, please, couldn’t you choose someone else some times?”

This refrain could serve as a helpful refrain through the sermon as it is not hard to imagine it in Job’s mouth.  We could hear it in our own voices as we recount the unfortunately many modern analogies we might bring into the sermon. And certainly in the context of this lectionary text, God’s choosing is not the good news we might like.

A Word of Pastoral Caution:

Due to the risk of being too much like Job’s comforters (who will shortly enter stage right) we want to be careful not to answer the question too quickly or too neatly on the first Sunday of four in the story of Job. What is the benefit of being God’s chosen? Are we more likely to respond to our present circumstance with the intimate questioning of Tevye or the confident certainty of the Catechism? Or somewhere in between?  Week 1 of 4 is a great time to orient ourselves within the story and to name the places our convictions conflict with the story. In keeping with a fable-genre, we might want to engage and sit with the tension instead of rushing to a too-quick resolution. This could be a good Sunday to to let the sermon serve as a lengthy introduction to the congregational prayer, where we also lift up the concerns, injustices and unanswered questions of our world this week.