“Who Is This Who Darkens Counsel?” The Use Of Rhetorical Irony In God’s Charges Against Job

By David R. Jackson

[David R. Jackson is Head of Biblical Studies at William Carey Christian School, and an Honorary Associate at Macquarie University, and the University of Sydney, in Mew South Wales, Australia. This article is a supplement to his Crying Out for Vindication: The Gospel According to Job (Phillipsburg, MJ.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2007).]

The extended debate in the Book of Job draws the reader in. Swayed by the various speakers, the reader feels pity for Job, is horrified by his suffering and outraged at the cruelty of the friends. The force of Job’s defense, especially as he speaks to and about God, heightens the discomfort. As the three friends fade away exhausted, Elihu intensifies the assault only to be followed by God himself who fearfully and aggressively questions Job. Given the prologue this seems contradictory Then suddenly God vindicates Job and condemns the friends. The resolution of this long debate, without God actually explaining why any of this has happened, sends the audience away to reflect on matters. The reader however has the benefit of the prologue. Some have tried to resolve the tension by removing the prologue and epilogue from the original form of the book, but moving the problem from author to editors still leaves the question begging.

A clue to the literary sophistication of this book may lie in Job’s observation that he is a mašal (a riddle, parable, or proverb). While claiming that God has kept his friends from understanding (Job 17:4; cf Matt 13:11) Job declares that he himself has become a mašal to them (17:6). The righteous man is a mašal and the secret to understanding him is hidden from the wicked, so Job says (17:10), “I cannot find a wise man among you.”

Polk concludes, with respect to the mašal:

From the point of view of the parable, the readers’ determination toward it, whatever their responses, identifies their place in the parable’s world, and hence their relation to its truth. In our judgements toward the parable, the parable judges us. So it is with the mašal.[1]

And so it is with the Book of Job.[2] The inherent ambiguity of the wording of 42:6 (did Job despise/reject something or did he melt; did he repent or was he comforted?) may be an intentional aspect of the mašal technique.

The mašal assumes a polemical context. It discriminates wisdom from folly The Book of Job is constructed as a dramatic and passionate polemic frequently employing sarcasm and irony. An analysis of God’s final addresses to Job reveals a careful and repetitive use of technical terms that formed the key concepts in that polemic.[3] Particularly significant are the words that the LORD had said to the satan in 2:3:4.

Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless (tām) and upright (yšr) man fearing (yrʾ) God and turning away (swr) from evil (raʿ). And he still holds fast his integrity (tummāh) although you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause (ḥinnām).

Throughout the polemic Job has argued that this is exactly what the LORD had done to him, in a context where neither he, nor his immediate audience, could have any knowledge of the events that precipitated God’s actions. God’s final affirmation (42:7-8) that “you [the friends] have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has” is a shocking and confronting confirmation of these words. Job and God agree that God did this to Job without cause. If, by this, the Creator of all the earth were to be accused of injustice, then the Creator here pleads guilty. But his address to Job, and reaffirmation of Job’s integrity (tām). occurs in the context of an extended and confronting reminder that the Creator is not accountable to the creature. This then removes any grounds for any accusation that Job has been attempting to justify himself at God’s expense. What then are we to make of the rhetoric of the LORD’s address to Job (38-41)?

Charge #1. Job 38:2 Who Is This That Darkens (ḥšk) Counsel (ʿṣh) By Words Without Knowledge (ydʿ)?

Job has asked God whether it is right for God to contend with Job and oppress him while looking favorably on “the schemes (ʿṣh) of the wicked” (10:3). He has confessed that wisdom, might, counsel (ʿṣh), and understanding belong to the LORD (12:13). He says:

He [God] reveals mysteries from the darkness (ḥšk) 

And brings the deep darkness (ṣalmāweṯ) into light. (12:22)

Though both Job and Eliphaz assert that “the counsel of the wicked is far from me” (21:16; 22:18), Eliphaz falsely accuses Job of saying that God cannot know or see what is happening on the earth, because he is shrouded in darkness beyond the clouds (22:13-14):

You say.

“What does God know? 

Can He judge through the thick darkness [thick cloud]? 

Clouds are a hiding place (sēṯer) for Him, so that He cannot see: 

And He walks on the vault of heaven.”

It is difficult to find anything Job has said that would supply a basis for this charge.

Elihu accused Job of ignorance of God’s ways (‘Job speaks without knowledge [ydʿ]”) and of a lack of wisdom (34:33, 35). Sarcastically he challenges Job, ‘‘Teach us what we shall say to Him; we cannot arrange our case because of darkness (ḥšk)” (37:19). He mocks Job’s ignorance in the midst of his own cosmic tour of the Creator’s powers. His final words bring down a howling humiliation of contradiction upon his own head. After waxing eloquent on the subject of the visible appearance of God in all his powers, he concludes that “we cannot find him” because he is so “exalted in power” (37:23). He warns Job that it is because of his power that men fear God and that is also why God does not look on anyone who thinks they are wise (37:24). Immediately the God who cannot be found appears, and the one Elihu said would not “regard” a person like Job, proceeds to declare Job to have spoken what is right. It is Elihu who disappears and Job who remains to be vindicated.

It is in this context that God puts the first charge to Job (38:2). God has taken up Eliphaz’s and Elihu’s charge and is asking Job whether it is true (cf also 38:3; 40:7; 42:4). In reply Job re-affirms what he has said all along: that he does not know the answers and wants God to speak. The answer to God’s question, “Who is this that darkens counsel?” is “the friends,” not ‘Job.”

Charge #2. Job 38:3; 40:7 I Will Ask (šʾl) You, And You Instruct Me (“Cause Me To Know”—ydʿ)

Earlier (13:22), Job had poetically asked God to do one of two things: 

Then call, and I will answer; (see charge #4) 

Or let me speak, then reply to me.

Job presents these alternatives having first (13:18) prepared his case (mišpāṭ—see charge #5). He notes that for him to proceed would be to take his life in his hands (13:14), but he is willing to take that risk (13:15) because this will be his salvation (13:16). The problem then is how to proceed. He cannot while God’s hand is heavy upon him and he is so terrified (13:20-21). So he appeals to God to lift his hand and take away his terror. Job stands ready but unable to proceed, calling upon God to help him and to resolve this impasse. He has not filed a lawsuit against God. He cannot. He has only asked God to permit him to do so and then to make it possible.

If now God has chosen the first alternative (“call, and I will answer” 38:3b; 40:2b), then he has acceded to Job’s requests:

Let me know (ydʿ) why you contend (ryḇ) with me. (10:2b) 

How many are my iniquities and sins? 

Make known to me (ydʿ) my rebellion and my sin. (13:23)

Job believes that if he were to be able to present his case before God,

I would learn (“He would cause me to know”) the words which He would answer. 

And perceive what He would say to me. (23:5)

He specifically denies that anyone could teach God anything:

Can anyone teach (lmd) God knowledge (ydʿ), 

In that He judges (yišpōṭ—see charge #5) those on high? (21:22)

He sarcastically rebukes the friends because their instruction has been worse than useless.

What counsel (ʿṣh—see charge #1) you have given to one without wisdom! What helpful insight you have abundantly provided (“caused me to know”)! (26:3)

In fact, everything they have said could be learned from a fish or a bird (12:7-8). He is sure that God knows the answer.

But He knows the way I take: 

When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. (23:10)

As a prospector searching for precious metals and stones, Job describes how only God knows where wisdom is to be found (28:12-28, esp. v. 23):

God understands its way.

And He knows its place.

There is no instance where Job offers to teach God, in spite of Zophar’s interpretation of his words (11:4). The closest Job comes to offering to teach anyone anything is where he attempts to teach the friends something of the power of God (27:11), but he notes immediately that the friends already know this (27:12). Rather he has consistently rejected the teaching of the friends and sought to hear the teaching of God. He is full of questions, not answers. It is they who have been quick to teach and who have presented themselves as having all the answers. Elihu, having waited for the three friends to teach Job his faults, finally erupts (32:7) because

I thought age should speak. 

And increased years should teach (“cause to know”) wisdom.

Elihu offers to teach (33:12, 33) and claims to be perfect in wisdom (36:4)—he has a belly “full of words” and is bursting to let them out (32:18-20). He is offended that anyone would expect God to “give an account of all his doings” (33:13) but this, too, is an exaggeration of Job’s words. Job has repeatedly asked to be vindicated. The only explanation he seeks would be for God to tell him what he had done to deserve all this, if in fact that were the case.

Charge #3. Job 40:2 Will The Faultfinder (ysr) Contend (ryḇ) With The Almighty?

Would it be accurate to describe Job as finding fault with God (ysr = one who corrects, disciplines, admonishes, or chastens)? In 4:3 the verbal form of the word is used to describe Job as one who has admonished many. It is difficult to find a reference where Job might be seen to have attempted to correct God. It is even more difficult to understand how God could affirm the Tightness of Job’s words in all his speeches if he were here accusing him of attempting to correct God himself.

On the other hand, Job’s friends have been intense in their attempts to find fault with Job and with Job’s claim to his own righteousness—and therefore with God’s affirmations of 1:8; 2:3 (which is the narrator’s opening premise, cf 1:1), even though they were unaware of them. Driving their passion is their understanding that Job’s claim to innocence imputes fault to God and makes God out to be unjust (8:3). Axiomatically they are certain that Job’s suffering is the chastisement/discipline (ysr) of God for his sin (5:17; 36:10).

Job verbalizes the perceived discrepancy between the righteousness of God and the suffering of an innocent man. He vividly describes what is happening. He desperately wants to find a way for God to vindicate him. But he does not find fault with God (cf. 10:3, 7). Repeatedly the friends put this charge to Job and repeatedly, in increasing frustration, he rejects the charge. Job is searching for an understanding whereby both God and Job are vindicated as righteous (ch. 27).

A review of the words Job addressed to God finds him, at his most vehement moments, calling upon God to affirm his innocence (cf. 7:20-21; 10:7-8; 13:23-24). It is the friends who interpret Job’s speeches as bringing direct charges against God (cf. 33:8-11; 34:5), thus:

Bildad:

Does God pervert justice (mišpāṭ)? 

Or does the Almighty pervert what is right (ṣḏq)? 

(8:3; cf. 34:12; 40:8)

Eliphaz:

Indeed, you do away with reverence (yrʾ) 

And hinder meditation (śiyḥāh) before God. 

(Job 15:4; cf. vv. 13, 25)

If Eliphaz were right, the satan’s case (1:9) would have been proved.

Job has certainly expressed the desire to contend with the Almighty. Words derived from ryb occur twelve times in the book (9:3; 10:2; 13:6, 8, 19; 23:6; 29:16; 31:13, 35; 33:13, 19; 40:2). He repeatedly confesses his inability to do so, given the awesome and overwhelming nature of the Creator (9:2-3; 23:6; cf 9:15, 19, 34-35), but he sees God as the one who has initiated the case (10:2). The case is being heard in the wrong court as the friends contend with Job, as if they were bringing God’s case against Job on God’s behalf (13:8). Job wants God alone to hear his case and decide between Job and his adversary = “the one who contends with me” (31:35). Here again is the ambiguity of the mašal polemic. The one who understands knows that the adversary is the satan not God.

God’s words to Job in 40:2 are almost a paraphrase of Job’s accusation against the friends in ch. 13. There Job rebuked the friends for attempting to contend on God’s behalf (13:8). He claims that they are misrepresenting God (3:7) and speaking lies about Job (13:4).

Charge #4. Job 40:2 Let Him Who Reproves (yḵḥ) God Answer (ʿnh) It.

It is difficult to see how Job’s actions are worthy of this rebuke. The verb yḵḥ, when applied to a person as the direct object, means to reprove, chide, or correct. It can also mean to argue with. Eliphaz uses this term (5:17; 22:4) to claim that God is reproving Job, and Job (6:25-26) compares Eliphaz’s rebuke to casting lots for orphans.

Job first calls for someone else to stand between God and Job and take the part of an umpire (yḵḥ 9:33). Later (13:3) he expresses his desire to “argue with God.” In fact he is prepared to argue his case before God (13:15) even if God kills him. Job’s problem is that he cannot imagine how this could be possible:

O that a man might plead (yḵḥ) with God. 

As a man with his neighbor! (16:21) 

Oh that I knew where I might find Him. 

That I might come to His seat! 

I would present my case (mišpāṭ) before Him 

And fill my mouth with arguments (yḵḥ). 

I would learn the words which He would answer (ʿnh). 

And perceive what He would say to me. 

Would He contend with me (ryḇ) by the greatness of His power? 

No, surely He would pay attention to me. 

There the upright would reason with Him (yḵḥ); 

And I would be delivered forever from my Judge. (23:3-7)

Job’s assertion that the LORD would reason with the upright is taken a step further by Isaiah (1:18) who extends the LORD’s invitation to wayward Judah:

“Come now, and let us reason together (yḵḥ),” 

Says the LORD, 

“Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow: 

Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.”

Eliphaz sees Job’s arguing as “useless talk” (15:3). Job says that if God permits the friends to rebuke him as one in disgrace, God will have wronged him (19:5; cf 2:3). Elihu is outraged that no one has succeeded in reproving Job (32:12) and asserts that Job’s suffering is God’s rebuke/chastening (33:19).

Eliphaz connects the question of rebuke with Job’s fear (yrʾ) of God, and his integrity (tām). He sarcastically asks if God reproves Job because he fears God so much (22:4)—an oxymoron resonant with irony (cf 1:8-9; 4:6). We note that at the inception of Job’s trial God had offered Job’s integrity and the fact that he fears God (1:8; 2:3) as the bait, and the question put to God by the satan in reply was, “Does Job fear God for nothing (hinnām)?” (1:9).

So Eliphaz’s appeal (4:6) is initially on solid ground, but is immediately compromised (4:7-8) by his understanding that the righteous cannot suffer since that would be unjust. He therefore advises Job to call upon the LORD and upon him alone (5:5, 8). The implication is that Job should sue for mercy as a penitent sinner (cf. Bildad’s advice at 8:20). But then that would require Job to deny his integrity and the satan would have won.

Elihu on the other hand wants Job to “be tried to the limit” because “he adds rebellion to his sin” as he “multiplies his words against God” (Job 34:36-37; cf charge #1). He is outraged that Job would continue to maintain his innocence because that would imply injustice on God’s part, and so is heard to be a rebuke of God himself.

The Book of Job is structured around a prolonged debate in which each side answers the other. It begins when God questions the satan and the satan answers (1:7, 9; 2:2, 4). Job has consistently expressed his realization that no one could answer God (9:3, 14-16, 32) even though he would attempt to do so if God would give him the opportunity (13:22; 14:15). His only hope would be if a mediator could speak on his behalf (9:32-33; 16:19). He bewails God’s failure to answer his cries (19:7, 16; 30:20; 31:35) and longs to “learn the words which he would answer” (23:5).

Elihu is offended that Job would want God to answer him (33:13). 

In this fourth charge God is again verbalizing the accusations of the friends.

Charge #5. Job 40:8

Will you really annul (prr) My judgment (mišpāṭ)? 

Will you condemn (ršʿ) Me that you may be justified (ṣḏq)?

Behind this charge stand the mutually exclusive assumptions of the two sides in this debate. Job believes, and therefore assumes, that God’s judgment is that he is righteous. The friends cannot countenance such a possibility. To answer the first of these two questions, one must first know what God’s judgment was with respect to Job. Job believes, and the reader knows, that God had declared Job to be righteous and, further, that the harm done to him had been without cause. The only people therefore who might be guilty of annulling that judgment would be Job’s friends.

This charge echoes Job’s plea to God: 

I will say to God, “Do not condemn me (ršʿ); 

Let me know why You contend (ryḇ cf. 40:1) with me.” (10:2)

Throughout the debate the question of Job’s righteousness (ṣḏq) has been argued back and forth, thus:

Can mankind be just before God? 

Can a man be pure before his Maker? (4:17)

And Job has affirmed his righteousness before God against the injustice of Eliphaz’s argument:

Desist now, let there be no injustice: 

Even desist, my righteousness is yet in it. (6:29)

Bildad is certain that any claim on Job’s part to righteousness must imply that God is unjust to have inflicted such suffering upon him (8:3, 6).

Zophar is determined that Job not be found to be righteous (11:2) while Job is certain that he will (13:18).

Eliphaz has accused Job of annulling or breaking (prr) reverence (yrʾ = the fear of the LORD) (15:4). Eliphaz and Bildad believe firmly that man, being a creature, cannot be righteous before God (15:14; 25:4). For them it is not about one’s behavior but about one’s ontological rank in the created order.

Eliphaz mocks the idea that God would even be interested in a man being righteous and asks:

Is there any pleasure to the Almighty if you are righteous. 

Or profit if you make your ways perfect (tām)? (22:3)

From the prologue (cf 1:8; 2:3) God obviously does put great importance on Job’s righteousness and blamelessness.

Job says he will die before he admits the friends are in the right (27:5). He recalls earlier days when he was a man respected—then he wore his righteousness as a garment and acted on behalf of the poor (29:14). He willingly calls for God to weigh him with just scales (31:6) so that the LORD will know his righteousness. The reader knows that God agrees with Job’s claim. Job does not need to condemn God to justify himself

It is Elihu (32:2) who said that Job had justified himself before God. Elihu claims that Job is not right because he is demanding that God give an account of all his doings (33:12-13). Mockingly Elihu calls upon Job to speak because he claims he wanted to justify Job (33:32). He quotes Job accurately when he says

For Job has said, “I am righteous, But God has taken away my right (mišpāṭ).” (34:5)

In fact Job had said:

As God lives, who has taken away my right (mišpāṭ). (27:2)

This is not quite the same as saying that God had taken away justice (ṣḏq), but it comes very close. Job is saying that God has denied him his day in court (mišpāṭ= judgment) and made his life miserable, which is true. Elihu makes the most of this as he takes Job’s words a step further:

Do you think this is according to justice (mišp̄aṭ, literally “to judgment”)? 

Do you say, “My righteousness (ṣḏq) is more than God’s”? (35:2)

Elihu is outraged too because Job has demonstrated that, in this world, living a life that pleases God “profits a man nothing” (34:9), but then Job has pointed out the reality of righteous suffering vividly and demonstrated the falsity of the friends’ assertions that the righteous always prosper and the wicked always suffer.

Elihu presents himself as the defender of the LORD’s righteousness (36:3). Like Eliphaz before him Elihu mocks the idea that God would be interested in Job’s righteousness (35:7; cf 22:3) even if it were so.

To be fair to the friends, Job has used some very strong language in his addresses to God. It is easy to see how they (and the reader) might take these statements as a basis for the charges expressed here by the LORD (40:8).

In Job 7, Job anticipates his death (7:1-10). At 7:7 the second person plurals of ch. 6 become singulars as Job turns his address away from the friends and towards God. It is to God, then, that he feels free to speak plainly and to complain (7:11), literally “meditate (ʾāśiyḥāh) in the bitterness of life.” Later (15:4) Bildad will recall Job’s words and accuse him of hindering “meditation (śiyḥāh) before God.”

Job says that on top of all his other sufferings God is sending him nightmares (7:14) so that he has no relief even in his sleep. Death would be better than his pains (7:15). He is going to die eventually anyway, so, he asks why God won’t just let him die now (7:16). He then presses his point in some of the boldest language of the book (7:17-21):

What is man that You magnify him. 

And that You are concerned about him. 

That You examine him every morning 

And try him every moment? 

Will You never turn Your gaze away from me. 

Nor let me alone until I swallow my spittle? 

Have I sinned? 

What have I done to You, O watcher of men? 

Why have You set me as Your target, 

So that I am a burden to myself? 

Why then do You not pardon my transgression 

And take away my iniquity? 

For now I will lie down in the dust: 

And You will seek me, but I will not be.

It is Bildad who interprets this speech as Job accusing God of perverting justice and what is right (8:3). The LORD’s question to Job here recalls Bildad’s interpretation explicitly:

Bildad to Job (Job 8:3)	God to Job (Job 40:8)
“Does God pervert justice (mišp̄aṭ)?”	“Will you really annul My judgment (mišp̄aṭ)?”
“Or does the Almighty pervert what is right (ṣḏq)?”	“Will you condemn Me that you may be justified (ṣḏq)?”

In his reply Job struggles to imagine how a man could ever win a dispute with God and declares such a thing to be impossible. The Creator-creature distinction makes this so (9:1 -14). Job says that all he could do would be to cry out for mercy (9:15).

In this flow of thought, between two assertions of his righteousness/innocence (9:15, 21), Job says (9:16-17):

If I called and He answered me. 

I could not believe that He was listening to my voice. 

For He bruises me with a tempest. 

And multiplies my wounds without cause (ḥinnām cf. 1:9; 2:3).

Thus the LORD himself has, unknown to Job or the friends, but known to the reader, affirmed that Job’s words in 9:17 are quite right. He has ruined Job without cause. God affirms that Job has spoken “of me what is right” (42:7-8).

Interestingly, the only other occurrence of the word is found on the lips of Eliphaz at 22:6 in a speech (vv. 1-6) that has a number of verbal connections with both the LORD’s initial description of Job and his final questioning of Job. Eliphaz asks:

Is there any pleasure to the Almighty if you are righteous (ṣḏq cf. 40:8) 

Or profit if you make your ways perfect? (tām cf. 1:1, 8; 2:3; 4:6; 8:20; 9:20-22 three times) 

Is it because of your reverence (yrʾ) that He reproves you (yḵḥ cf. 1:1, 8; 2:3; 15:4; 40:2), 

That He enters into judgment (mišp̄aṭ cf. 40:8) against you? 

Is not your wickedness great (cf. 1:8; etc.— turning away from evil). 

And your iniquities without end? 

For you have taken pledges of your brothers without cause (ḥinnām). 

And stripped men naked.

In this speech Eliphaz moves from cruel misunderstanding to direct and patently false accusations.

In 9:20b Job states, “Though I am guiltless, He will declare me guilty.” Taken on its own this statement would certainly appear to convict Job of the charge implied in God’s question (40:8): “Will you condemn (ršʿ) Me that you may be justified (ṣḏq)?” Taken in parallel with 9:20a, however, Job’s words are capable of a different construction altogether:

Though I am righteous, my mouth will condemn me; 

Though I am guiltless, He will declare me guilty.

Job has waxed eloquent on the Creator-creature distinction, noting that no one could question God’s actions (9:12b) and that if he were to appear before God’s presence he would be unable to speak, or he would say something wrong (“my mouth will condemn me”) so that though innocent of the original charges, he would offend God by his clumsy defense. It is in this context, where, hypothetically God and Job are facing each other in court and Job is unable to speak, that he envisions himself being condemned in spite of his innocence. He concludes (9:32):

For He is not a man as I am that I may answer Him. 

That we may go to court (mišp̄aṭ) together.

It cannot happen. Thus Job’s suggesting that God would declare an innocent man guilty is not the raw accusation that the friends latch onto as grounds for condemnation.

Eliphaz had begun his argument (4:7-8) by asserting that calamity falls upon the wicked and blessings on the righteous because God is just, thus:

Remember now. 

who ever perished being innocent? 

Or where were the upright destroyed? 

According to what I have seen. 

those who plow iniquity 

And those who sow trouble harvest it.

Bildad’s speech has basically been an argument that calamity would never have come upon Job or his children without just cause in something they had done to deserve it (Job 8). Job responds (9:22-24):

It is all one; therefore I say 

“He destroys the guiltless and the wicked.” 

If the scourge kills suddenly. 

He mocks the despair of the innocent. 

The earth is given into the hand of the wicked: 

He covers the faces of its judges. 

If it is not He, then who is it?

Here, then, Job points to the reality of the suffering of the righteous, including natural disaster and the wickedness of corrupt officials, and poses the question, ‘‘If it is not He, then who is it?” This same sentiment is repeated in 10:3. In other words, God is sovereign over a world where the righteous suffer and where justice does not appear to be being done. God appears to be “mocking the despair of the innocent.” With this, God is not in disagreement (2:3). Job’s description of reality is true. The friends by contrast are affirming a fantasy (4:7).

Job notes the passage of time and sees his death as approaching (9:25-26). He sees no hope in resolving matters with God because he can see no way that the creature could appear before the Creator to do so (9:27). In such circumstances he sees no hope of acquittal: “I know that you will not acquit me” (9:28a; cf 10:14). There is nothing he can do (9:29). In words found also in Jer 2:22, Job points out that a man cannot wash away his own sins (Job 9:30-31; 14:4). In different words this same assertion is repeated (10:16-17), and for the same reason (10:8-15). The whole thrust of this speech is Job’s passionate desire to know “why You contend with me” (10:2b).

In his response Zophar (Job 11) attempts to persuade Job that if he is righteous, he will live in peace and be blessed. But given his present condition, he must have sinned. The sin must be confessed and removed like an object taken from a tent. In Zophar’s mechanistic understanding, removing the sin brings automatic restoration of honor and prosperity.

Job’s speech to Zophar is laced with sarcasm and parody. He cries:

I am a joke to my friends. 

The one who called on God, and He answered him: 

the just and blameless man is a joke. (12:4)

The exact opposite of the friends’ concept of God’s just governance (cf 15:17-35; 18:5-21; 20:4-29) is all around (12:6). Even fish know that all of this is God’s doing (12:7-9; cf. 1:21; 21:7-34). God is sovereign (12:10) and there is no escaping that he has ordered Job’s suffering Job then begins his own “cosmic tour” illustrating the Creator-creature distinction (12:13-25), only his tour takes in a range of human authorities who all find themselves subject to God’s judgment and purposes. Human prosperity and power come and go at the will of God alone.

In this Job is affirming what both he and the friends would agree is the sine qua non of the whole issue: God is sovereign. What happens is only by his decree. The friends claim that everything that happens to people is God’s response to their sin or virtue. Job says they are maligning God by proposing such a mechanistic understanding (13:7-12). Or is God partial to some and not others? If the good are blessed and the wicked punished, why, he asks, aren’t his friends sitting in the dust next to him?? This is sarcasm.

In the clearest terms Job states (19:6): “Know then that God has wronged me.” The word here is ʿiwṯāniy. When used with a person as the direct object, as here, it means to pervert justice or defraud (cf. Ps 119:78; Lam 3:36). Earlier Bildad had accused Job of saying just this (cf. 8:3). Later Elihu will defend God against such a charge (34:12). Job here certainly seems to be justifying Bildad’s charge and laying the basis for the LORD’s. Clines argues that Job here is accusing God of destroying his reputation and publicly branding him as a sinner in the eyes of his friends.[5] They have insulted him and dealt harshly with him (19:3). If they launch themselves against him and win their day in court (19:5) Job still defies them and says that he is innocent (19:6). If their case against him is successful it will be because God has so ordered it. If that were to happen, God will have subverted Job. This is the hypothetical outcome in a conditional sentence (ʾim . . . ʾēp̄ô if . . . then). Certainly the net is closing in on Job and his enemies are advancing (19:6b-19). In such circumstances he calls for pity (19:21) and looks to his Redeemer (19:25-27), certain that if the condition put forward in v. 6 were to be fulfilled, the friends who won the day would bring down on themselves God’s wrath. Thus, within the overall argument of the speech, Job is saying that this hypothetical result (“God has wronged me”) is not going to happen.

This question from the mouth of God (40:8) precisely echoes the charges Bildad (8:3) and Elihu (33:2) had brought against Job. Are they correct? Is this what Job meant at 27:2? At 40:8 God puts the question to Job, and at 2:3 and 42:7-8 he supplies the answer.

Charge #6. Job 38:4-39:30; 40:9-41:34 The Creator—Creature Distinction Is Applied.

The most dominant theme presented in the LORD’s speeches is his extended assertion of the distinction that exists between the Creator and his creature. No man can hold the Creator to account for his actions. In two series of questions, fired as if from a machine gun, Yahweh calls upon Job, and all who hear him, to acknowledge that only God the Creator can do or know these things.

This mode of asserting the Creator-creature distinction is not new to the Book of Job, except for the fact that here it is the LORD himself who is conducting the interrogative tour of the cosmos to make the point.

Earlier Zophar had, in a shorter version, attempted to make the same point to Job in the same way (11:7-9), as had Eliphaz (15:7-8) (see also 22:12-20), and Bildad (ch. 25).

Later Job replied to Zophar with the question that God finally addresses to Job: 

Can anyone teach God knowledge (yᵉlammed dāʿaṯ). 

In that He judges (yišpoṭ) those on high? (21:22) (cf. #5 above)

And in an extended speech to Bildad (26:5-14) Job employs extensive ironic polemic against Canaanite cosmology (cf. Behemoth and Leviathan in Job 40-41) to stress how little we know of God.

Elihu’s delivery of this theme is almost as prolonged as the LORD’s (35:5-8; 36:22-37:24) and bears striking similarity to the “Comforter” of Isa 40, who prepares the way of the LORD in the wilderness. Like Elihu, Isaiah’s Comforter addresses the LORD’s suffering people in exile, responding to their cries that the LORD has forgotten them and disregarded their cause (Isa 40:27). The Comforter in Isaiah comes to attend to his lost and exiled people and carry them gently home. He then fires off a tirade of questions (Isa 40:12-31) to remind God’s people that he is faithful whether they understand how or why or not. God is not answerable to his creatures. In a context where the command is given to ‘‘Comfort, comfort my people” (nḥm cf. Job 42:6) the prophet points to their lack of knowledge (Isa 40:21, 28). He asks (40:27):

Why do you say, O Jacob. 

and assert, O Israel, 

“My way is hidden from the LORD,

And the justice due me escapes the notice of my God?” (cf. charge #1)

The assurance is given that such is not the case (40:31).

The speeches of the LORD in Job 38:4-39:30; 40:15-41:34 and those of the Comforter in Isa 40:1 -31 do not attempt to convict of sin, but rather to remind and reassure. The suffering righteous one’s lack of knowledge, or lack of understanding, is not rebuked as a sin that requires repentance, but as a reality that should enable him to defer to the LORD and so keep things in perspective and persevere in faithfulness.

Agur the son of Jakeh delivers a similar message, laced with something of the same sarcasm that we find on Job’s lips (Prov 30:1-6):

The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, the oracle. 

The man declares to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal: 

Surely I am more stupid than any man. 

And I do not have the understanding of a man. (cf. Job 12:2) 

Neither have I learned wisdom. 

Nor do I have the knowledge of the Holy One. 

Who has ascended into heaven and descended? 

Who has gathered the wind in His fists? 

Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? 

Who has established all the ends of the earth? 

What is His name or His son’s name? 

Surely you know! (cf. Job 38:5, 18, 21, 33) 

Every word of God is tested: 

He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. 

Do not add to His words (cf. Job 6:10) 

Or He will reprove you, 

and you will be proved a liar.

Paul delivers a similar reminder in Rom 9:19-21:

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God (ho antapokrinomenos tō theō)? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?

The natural and logical questions expressed in Rom 9:19 are answered by putting any person who questions God in their place. In Rom 9 the person is questioning the justice of God’s election of some to mercy and others to “hardening.” The implication is that the appropriate response is silent acceptance. The creature does not answer back to God (9:20). The same word (antapokrithēnai) occurs in Luke 14:6 where Jesus silences the Pharisees and experts in the law. Interestingly, the word only occurs twice in the LXX, both times in Job. In Job 16:8 it is used to translate the phrase (bᵉp̄ānay yaʿaneh = to answer in my face). At 32:12, Elihu asserts:

Indeed, there was no one who refuted (yḵḥ = elengchōn) Job, 

Not one of you who answered (ʿnh = antapokrinomenos) his words.

In Job 40:2 we again have the synonymous parallelism of yḵḥ argue (elengchon) and ʿnh answer; however, on this occasion instead of antapokrinomenos LXX offers the milder apokrithēsetai.

The point stands—no man, nor any other created being, is going to call God to account. To the end of the Book of Job, even though God vindicates Job and the things he had said, the LORD does not explain to Job or his friends why he has done this, nor does he let them in on the opening scenes. Only the reader has that information.

One implication of the Creator-creature distinction as presented by the LORD in Job 38-41 maybe, therefore, to rebuke the mechanistic understanding that made God’s blessings and curses absolutely contingent upon the creature’s behavior, thus placing God under obligation to man. God’s right, and the justice of that right, to initiate Job’s trial, is what is being asserted. For God to explain this to Job or to the friends would be to deny this very assertion. Thus, only the reader—the targeted audience—will have the background information necessary to understand. God here then is seen to be teaching the reader, while not being held to account by the creature.

Conclusion

On this analysis, God has appeared, as requested by Job. In his address to Job he has presented the charges that the friends have made against Job.

The introductory words of the LORD’s opening address to Job, “Who is this who” (Job 38:2) may be read in two ways. Either what follows constitutes the LORD’s charges against Job, or they are a citation of charges laid by others and brought to the LORD’s attention. These words (“Who is this who”) would meet Fox’s criteria for identifying an “attributed quotation,” being “an explicit verb of speaking or thinking.”[6] He also notes the occurrence, particularly in poetry of “functional ambiguity.” The difficulty lies in establishing some objective control lest it “become an all-purpose tool for artificial elimination of difficulties.”[7] He therefore suggests that the control needed in identifying functional ambiguity is the context. In the narrower context of Job 38-42, this ambiguity appears to be a deliberate dramatic device designed to heighten the impact of the climax in 42:7-11 when Job is vindicated.

At the heart of the confusion governing the debates lies the shocking reality—a reality revealed to the reader in the opening narrative—that God did, in fact, inflict harm on Job without cause. Job has asserted this to be the case based only on his firm belief that God has declared him righteous and that he has done nothing that would give grounds for God to so afflict him. In the ears of the friends such assertions could only be understood to imply that God had acted unjustly. If, in fact, God’s treatment of Job was unjust in this sense, then at Job 2:3 God himself pleaded guilty to the charge. What Job and the friends do not know, however, is that God had set this up to be a test not so much of Job’s integrity, but of the integrity of God’s dealings with men whereby a man could be declared righteous and blameless before God and his loyalty to God have its own integrity without being a simple exchange of compliance for prosperity The repeated assertion of the Creator-creature distinction by all sides serves to affirm the conclusion that God has the right to so test one of his servants in order to prove false the claims of the satan.

Notes

1. Timothy Polk, “Paradigms, Parables, and Mešalim: On Reading the Mašal in Scripture,” CBQ 45 (1983): 564-83. See also A. R. Johnson, “Mašal,” in Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East: Presented to Harold Henry Rowley in Celebration of His Sixty-fifth Birthday (ed. Martin Noth and D. Winston Thomas; VTSup 3; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1955), 162-69; F. Hauck, “parabole,”TDMT5:744-61; George M. Landes, ‘Jonah: A Mašal?” in Israelite Wisdom: Theological and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrier (ed. John G. Gammie et al.; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1978), 137-58; David Winston Suter, “Masai in the Similitudes of Enoch,” JBL 100 (1981): 193-212.
2. Reading the Book of Job as a mašal does not imply that it is fiction. Job certainly does not use the term with that sense in 17:6.
3. Cf hinnam without cause; ḥšk darkens; ydʿ know; yḵḥ reproves; yrʾ fearing; ysr faultfinder, one who corrects, disciplines, admonishes, or chastens, chastisement, discipline; yšr upright; mišpāṭ judgment; yišpōṭ judges; swr turning away; ʿwt pervert, wrong make crooked; ʿnh answer; ʿṣh counsel; nḥm comfort, be sorry; prr break or frustrate; ṣḏq righteousness, justice; raʿ evil; ryḇ contend; rsc condemn, be evil; śiyḥāh meditation; PI ask; tām blameless; tummāh integrity.
4. Unless otherwise indicated, all English citations of the Bible are taken from the NASB.
5. David J. A. Glines, Job 1-20 (WBC 17; Dallas: Word, 1989), 441-42.
6. Michael V Fox, “The Identification of Quotations in Biblical Literature,” %AW92 (1980): 416-31; here 420-25.
7. Ibid., 428.