Introduction to the book Job

The 18th Book of the Bible: Suffering Even in the Lives of Righteous People

The Book of Job deals with the theme of God’s justice. How can a righteous God allow even good people to suffer?
Even in secular circles, Job is recognized as one of the most significant poetic works in world literature.

The author is not named in the text, so it is named after its main character. According to the Jewish Talmud (Hebrew, roughly meaning “teaching” or “study”), the Book of Job was written by Moses. The Talmud is the traditional interpretation and practical application of the rules of the Law by Jewish scholars. It was completed around 600 CE and is today, alongside the Tanakh, the most important foundation of Judaism.

In Christian Bibles, we find Job as the first book of poetic literature, preceding the Psalms; in the Jewish Tanakh, it belongs to the last section, the Writings (Ketuvim), and is placed after Proverbs.

The name Job or Jjob derives from a root meaning “to be hostile or to hate,” and can perhaps be translated as “the hated one or the one who is treated with hostility.”

Job presumably lived before, or at the latest during, the time of Abraham, long before the emergence of the people of Israel, in the land of Uz, which is also mentioned in Lamentations, chapter 4, verse 21.

Uz is a region southeast of the Dead Sea in the mountains of present-day Jordan. In later times, the descendants of Esau settled here and founded the kingdom of Edom.
Today, and even in Jesus’ time, it was a barren desert landscape; in Job’s day, however, the land seems to have been significantly more water-rich, as evidenced by his abundance of livestock.

Job is a righteous and God-fearing man of great standing and wealth.
We learn that Satan challenges God to test Job and receives permission to rob Job of everything except his own life.

In his misery, Job’s friends come to stand by him. Overcome with horror and compassion, they remain with him for seven days without saying a word themselves, until Job himself begins to speak.
A debate ensues in which Job asserts his innocence, while three of his friends are convinced that Job must have done something wrong, since they assume a direct connection between behavior and well-being.

Since Job cannot convince them, he turns directly to God, affirms his innocence, but sins verbally by making accusations.
Before God answers, a fourth friend speaks, pointing to God’s sovereignty and suggesting that God can also educate people through suffering.

God’s response from the whirlwind is unexpected: He does not address Job’s challenges, but reveals Himself as the majestic Creator and Sustainer of the entire universe.
Job humbles himself and repents, and God restores all his possessions to him twofold.

It is interesting to note here that, while all his possessions are doubled, the number of children God restores to Job remains the same.
Job’s children who died on earth live on in eternity, and in heaven their number will also have doubled for Job.

Outline of the Book of Job:

Content of the book of Job: