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THE BOOK OF JOB.
CHARACTERS in order of speaking.
Narrator
Job
A righteous, godly middle-aged man who has cared for the poor and stood for the oppressed, highly respected, wealthy and successful, until the story begins.
Eliphaz
A gentleman of polished good manners and tact, who once had a vision of God.
Bildad
Blunt and thoughtless.
Zophar
Shallow and dogmatic.
Elihu
Fiery young upstart
Voice of God offstage.
OUTLINE.
Introduction by Narrator Chapters 1 - 2
ACT ONE - THREE ROUNDS OF SPEECHES
Chapter 3-27 v6 is taken up with three rounds of speeches,
first Job, Eliphhaz, Job, Bildad, Job, Zophar
second, the same order,
third the same except that Zophar did not speak.
(Chapter 27:7-23 - may be misplaced; not clear who is speaking.)
Prelude to Act Two. Poem in Praise of Wisdom. - Narrator. Ch. 28
ACT TWO.
Job’s final speech 29 - 31
Elihu’s speech 32 - 37
(or Narrator may take over in Ch. 37 describing the thunderstorm in which God appears.)
God talks to Job 38 - 42:6
Conclusion Narrator 42:7 - end.
THE STORY ON EARTH.
Sudden calamity befalls Job and he loses his wealth, his children, his health and (as it later appears) the respect of the community, including those he has helped.
Even at the worst moment his first reaction is to worship.
His wife fails to stand by him (but does not, as some translations put it, tell him to curse God and die. She tells him to say farewell to God - say his prayers and give up.)
His friends come and at first sit silently with him - the best thing they did.
Once they start speaking they keep trying to tell him that his suffering must be a punishment from God and that all he has to do is repent and everything will be all right again. They get increasingly angry and frustrated as Job does not accept their ideas.
Job knows that there is no particularly great sin that he needs to confess. He is bewildered, believes God has done this to him, cannot understand why, questions God, expresses both his thoughts and his feelings - uninhibited by his friends’ shock at his seeming irreverence.
Later God speaks to him, first dealing with his deepest needs in a strange way but one which is very real to those who have experienced deep suffering.
At the end, GOD DECLARES THAT JOB HAS BEEN RIGHT AND HIS FRIENDS WRONG. Take no notice of any interpretation of the book of Job which ignores this. God tells the friends to ask Job to pray for their forgiveness. When Job does this, he recovers and his fortunes are restored.
THE STORY IN HEAVEN.
God has challenged Satan - “Have you seen my servant Job?” and Satan has replied that Job only serves God for what he can get out of it.
This is the ultimate challenge to God’s whole order. Satan is saying that righteousness and love for God are not real; that only selfishness is real; that God’s rule is based on a dream. Satan claims to be the only real ruler because he uses self interest. God’s way, he says, can never work.
This challenge matters. God has the power to overcome Satan by force - but force is Satan’s method. The conflict is in the realm of authority not power; so God allows Satan, within limits set, to have his way on Earth and cause Job to suffer.
Job’s faithfulness wins the argument for God - and Job does not know.
JOB AS A PICTURE OF CHRIST.
Job suffered: - pain, rejection, disloyalty, false accusation, feeling forsaken by God - and the purpose of it all was to win a conflict in Heaven, defeating Satan there by suffering on Earth.
All these are smaller pictures of the suffering of Christ.
JOB AS A PICTURE OF THE CHURCH.
Redemption was finished by Christ on the Cross; but the defeat of Satan has a further stage to go.
Satan’s claim on the human race was threefold:
1/ It is 100% sinful - ended by Christ’s birth
2/ It is guilty - ended by Christ’s death
3/ It chooses Satan - ended by the Church’s faithfulness in suffering;
so the oldest book in the Bible tells its last story - the final downfall of Satan when God’s persecuted people go on choosing God despite everything.
MAIN MESSAGES OF THE BOOK OF JOB.
The conflict in Heaven is real. The issue is important enough for God to permit those He loves to suffer on Earth.
Suffering is not necessarily a punishment, as Job’s three older friends said, or to do us good, as Elihu said. In this instance Job was suffering for God’s sake, to fulfil God’s purposes and establish His rule - but Job did not know this.
Shallow theology has no answers. It is knowing God, not knowing about Him, which gives us our answers. Elihu realised this in theory but it was Job who found it in practice.
God does not mind when people scream at Him. In fact the more honest people are with Him, the sooner they come to know Him. Ultimately nothing can be answered except by knowing God personally.
SUMMARY OF THE SPEECHES.
CHAPTERS.
3 Job wishes he had never been born and asks WHY?
4-5 Eliphaz gently tries to lead him to repent of the sin he assumes Job has committed. It would have been good counselling if Job had been guilty. As it was it was merely hurtful despite its tact.
6-7 Job replies; “You don’t know how I feel. Life has become insipid. I looked to you for comfort and you let me down” and to God he asks “Why?”
8 Bildad is blunter. “God does not pervert justice. Your children must have sinned and He killed them. That makes it all right.”
“All the learning of the past is on our side; so just repent and all will be well.”
9-10 Job almost ignores Bildad and goes on questioning God.
“How can I argue with Him, He is too big.
If only there were a mediator between us.”
and again he pours out his complaint to God.
11 Zophar is shallowness personified.
“If only God would speak against you
Just repent and you will be all right.”
12-14 Job lashes out at them angrily, then goes on thinking aloud, turning over the problem.
15 Eliphaz - the same old arguments.
16-17 Job - “Miserable comforters are you all” he then goes on talking, partly to himself, partly to God, longing passionately to be vindicated.
He begins to realise that there is something bigger in all this than he had thought. “My witness is in Heaven.” (He has no idea that God is saying about Job, “My witness is on Earth.”)
18 Bildad is now personally offended that Job does not accept their arguments and brings them out again.
The friends are stuck in a rut, angry, offended, but getting nowhere, and never speaking to God directly. They speak about Him, but not to Him.
Job on the other hand keeps speaking to God, sometimes bitterly but always honestly. His thinking is moving forward.
19 Job - I know that my Redeemer lives - there is someone on my side - in Heaven - I shall see Him in my flesh even after I am dead - and if you keep on accusing me you will have Him to reckon with.
(Never believe it when people say that Heaven, life after death, resurrection, final judgment and spiritual conflict are New Testament ideas. Here they all are in one of the oldest Old Testament books.)
It is the suffering and accusations and arguments that led Job to the Truth. Shortly before, in chapter 14, he had been saying that there was no hope beyond death. Job’s breakthrough in understanding has come because his suffering has forced him to question orthodox beliefs - and because he did his questioning in fellowship with God. From this point on he is more confident.
20 Zophar follows Bildad in taking offence personally, and once more describes God’s judgment on the wicked.
21 With renewed confidence Job now declares that all their arguments are nonsense and do not fit the facts. The wicked flourish and die in peace.
22 Now Eliphaz takes offence personally and he who was gentlest at first turns nastiest of all - in temper admittedly, and he tries to smooth it over at the end.
23-24 Job has finished with theology now, he wants God. “If only I knew where to find Him.” But at least he has realised that, “he knows the way I take. When he has tested me I shall come forth like gold.”
“Why does He not appoint times when people can come to Him as to an earthly judge?”
25 Bildad’s last speech is a defeated one; just a few platitudes about how great God is and how sinful we all are.
26-27 Job, more confident now, declares God’s majesty in terms every bit as grand as his friends’ - but he maintains his own integrity.
Zophar who was nastiest at first is best at the end - he misses out his final speech altogether.
ACT TWO.
28 Prelude by Narrator - poem in praise of Wisdom. Miners can dig deep for jewels, but where shall Wisdom be found?
29 Job describes his past as a happy family man with his children about him, respected as a town elder, a philanthropist and campaigner for justice for the weak. “My Autumn Days” - reaping a good harvest from a life well spent.
30 He continues to describe how society has rejected him when calamity came.
31 Reasserts his innocence.
32-36 Young Elihu has kept quiet until now but bursts out angrily. He passionately believes in God’s greatness and has a few insights showing original thought. But ultimately he says little more than the others.
His best insight is right at the beginning. “It is the spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding” - he has realised that we cannot know about God without knowing God. Here is the doctrine of the indwelling Holy Spirit early in the Old Testament. But it is Job, not Elihu, who has proved the truth of it in practice.
His other idea is that suffering is not so much God’s punishment as his messenger to teach us - there is some truth in this, as once again Job has proved - but Elihu has no idea of the real reason why Job is suffering and his discourse is fading out rather pathetically until it is saved by the coming of a thunderstorm.
37 The Storm. (May be Narrator or Elihu speaking).
(SUGGESTED STAGE DIRECTIONS HERE.
Friends draw back to edge of stage, Job gets up and moves to centre, looking up, hands raised to Heaven. If God is in that thunderstorm, not all the rain in the world will keep him from it. It is God, not arguments, that he wants.)
38-41 God speaks.
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge”
They have all been doing that. Five faces fall, even Job’s.
Now all questions and arguments are put on hold while God answers Job’s greatest inner need - for God Himself. God takes Job on a conducted tour of Creation - sharing His handiwork as an artist might with a friend - and in the process restoring Job’s appreciation of His greatness. Some of it is light and good humoured teasing, a refreshing change after all the intensity of the arguments. God is easier to get along with than many of the people who claim to represent Him.
42 Job is satisfied. He can forget his longing for vindication and relax with his new personal knowledge of God.
42:7 EPILOGUE BY NARRATOR.
Job may be satisfied but God is not. Job must be vindicated; so God tells Eliphaz plainly that Job was right. The friends were wrong. They must ask Job to pray for their forgiveness for what they have said. (At last, Eliphaz is hearing from God.)
After Job has prayed for his friends his own fortunes are restored. He is healed, relatives rally round to give him a new start, he becomes wealthy again, has another family and lives many more years.
Finally, the world’s greatest poem ends with a literary gem in its final sentence. Like a diner sitting back full at the end of a sumptuous banquet, Job died, being old and satisfied with days.