Simple Studies in the Scriptures
The Book of Job
A
Biblical Drama Illuminating the Problem of the Ages
Rev.
Francis N. Peloubet, D.D.
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1906
Revised And Edited
Dr.
The Book of Job
A
Biblical Drama Illuminating the Problem of the Ages
Foreword
Perhaps an appropriate
introduction to the study of this suffering saint named Job is to provide some
background information. Consider then,
the location of the book, the author of the narrative, and the time period in
which the book was written.
First, the location of the book. Job is placed before Psalms and Proverbs. There is a good reason for this. In Job the
believer learns something about the majesty of Almighty God. Over thirty times
the term Shaddai (the Mighty God) is
used in speaking of the Lord. The soul
learns that our God is an awesome God.
·
He speaks and the universe springs into existence.
·
He looks in a certain direction and the mountains melt.
·
He raises His hand and the hearts of kings are changed.
·
He is answerable to no one and does all things according to the counsel
of His own good pleasure.
With proper respect, with
holy fear and flesh that trembles, the believer is invited by the Psalmist to
worship the One known as El Shaddai.
The saints are invited to sing the songs of Zion. And, with wonder in the heart
and a song upon the lips, the believer is instructed by the Proverbs how to
walk before the One who is exalted above all things and worshipped.
There is a logical
progression reflecting life itself from Job to Psalms to the Proverbs. The proper plan of life is to know God, to
enjoy Him forever and to walk before Him in righteousness.
Consider the human author of this sublime poem. Tennyson said that Job was
"the greatest poem of ancient or
modern times." And yet its author remains anonymous.
Perhaps it was Moses who
caught the words of faith from the lips of the suffering saint and wrote, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken
away; blessed be the Name of the Lord” (1:21). Certainly the ancient
rabbis, according to Talmudic tradition, attributed the authorship of Job to
Moses. It was said of Moses that, "God spoke mouth to mouth, even
apparently" (Num. 12:8 cf. Deut. 34:10).
If Moses did not write this
book of the Bible, perhaps David
did. According to 2 Samuel 23:2 (Acts
2:29.30) David was authorized to pick up the pen of a prophet and write down
those things, which will live and abide forever. “The spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue.”
The tongue of David was at times touched by poetry of the highest order. His imagination could soar to places beyond
the sun and moon and stars even into the very throne room of God. His heart
could beat with the hope of seeing the Messiah.
It is not hard to believe
that a David with the skill of a scribe could remember a man saying, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He
shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.
And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall
I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not
another” (Job 19:25ff).
Carlyle was right. The Book of Job is grand in its sincerity,
majestic in its simplicity, melodic in its epic narrative and repose of
reconcilement. The book of Job expresses
sublime sorrow and sublime reconciliation which is the oldest choral music as
of the heart of mankind; so soft, and great; as the summer midnight, as the
world with its seas and stars!
“David, are you the author of Job?” If not,
“Elihu did you write it?” Matthew Henry believes that he sees in Job
32:15-16 the words of a historian being mixed with the rhetoric of a self-
righteous hysterical assault upon the holy man who is at the mercy of God.
Elihu may have come to comfort Job but perhaps he went away to record the
contest of ideas he had with the suffering saint who would not concede a vital
point. Job would not admit to a wrong
doing to the point that he deserved his dilemma. Elihu was convinced that Job
had done something to merit misery or else he would not be going through such a
terrible ordeal, and Elihu was a Wise Man. It is not being facetious to say
that Elihu was a Wise Man for others called him that in society.
In the ancient world The Wise, as a special group, were highly
honored in the community. In Jeremiah
18:18 they stand beside the priest and the prophet. Then said they, “Come, and let us devise against Jeremiah;
for the Law shall not perish from the Priest, nor counsel from the Wise, nor
the word from the Prophet.”
The Wise in society were the schoolmasters and the court counselors of the ancient world (Revelation In Jewish Wisdom Literature). The Wise could lay down the general method of God's workings, if they were humble.
People would listen to them. The Wise were asked to write down the lessons of life they had learned much like Solomon wrote the Proverbs and the Ecclesiastics. When trouble came to individuals counsel would be sought from The Wise. They would come and they would sit. Then they would speak and give their opinion.
Elihu was among The Wise. “Elihu, did you write down the conversations you and your friends had with Job?” The answer is silence. It is not known. And it does not matter for the lesson is remembered once more in respect to holy things that the message is always more important than the man.
The great evangelist George Whitefield once said, “Let the name of Whitefield perish from the earth but let the name of Jesus be proclaimed.” It is the gospel which is most important and, as we shall see, the message of the gospel shall shine forth from the Divine narrative. In this manner a movement is made from the author to the message so that, by the grace of God, we read of a man named Job.
Human Author: Job
Date of Writing: Before the days of Moses
Divine Author: God the Holy Spirit
Key Verse: Job 19:25
“For I know that my redeemer
liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.”
~*~
The Book of Job
“This is the cry
That echoes through
the wilderness of earth,
Through song and sorrow,
day of death and birth:
‘Why?’”
It is the high Wail of the child with all
his life to face, Man's last dumb question as he reaches space: Why?”
What People Have Said
Men
like Tennyson and Daniel Webster regarded Job as the greatest poem in all
literature. Carlyle said that Job is
"one of the grandest things ever written with pen”. “There is nothing
written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit."
The Objectives of a Study of Job
·
To provide new interest in the book
itself.
·
To present its greatness and glory as
literature.
·
To preserve comforting truths.
·
To bring consolation to the perplexed and
suffering.
·
To promote its character-forming elements
and power.
There
is a mystery to the suffering in this world in relation to God and in relation
to man. The first mystery lies in the
difficulty, especially for one who is suffering, of believing that the God who
rules this world of tragedies, of wars, of oppressions, of unspeakable
cruelties,
and intolerable agonies, is
good and wise, and is a loving Father in heaven.
Can it be that a good and loving God rules this seemingly misgoverned world, where evil comes upon the evil and good alike; where the fire burns equally the martyr and the villain; and the storm overwhelms in the same ruin the pirate ship and the Morning Star freighted with missionaries and the Gospel; where the life of the best men seems to be a tragedy, and its crown a crown of thorns, while the wicked sometimes roll in wealth and sit on thrones?
Is
God a mere Relentless Fate, imprisoned in His own laws? Is life a true picture,
which is described by Zola, as that of a railway train dragged by an engine
whose driver has been killed, dashing at headlong speed into the midnight?
"The
train is the world,
we
are the freight,
fate
is the track,
death
is the darkness,
God
is the engineer—who is dead."
La Bete Huamine
~*~
Or, can we find an explanation of this world of
mingled good and evil in the Zoroastrian religion "dating more than twelve centuries before Christ, where in order
to escape from making God responsible for evil, a dual principle was conceived,
giving birth to the two brothers, Aurasmazda, the power for good, and Ahriman,
the power of evil" (Raymond, The
Book of Job). The soul cries out for a good God, not a mere "bright Essence Incarnate,"
not a mere "Power that makes for
Righteousness," but
a Loving Father. The soul needs faith in God, and love to God.
Rubaiyat
"There
was the Door
to
which I found no Key,
There
was the Veil
through
which I might not see."
~*~
Omar Khayyam
Job's
friends try in a wrong way to find a solution. "For the theologian, next to the existence of a good God, the most
fundamental question is the presence of pain and evil in a world he has
ordered" (R. G. Moulton, Modern
Reader's Bible). The man-ward aspect of this problem is full of perplexity,
conflict, and despair. The fact of such seemingly indiscriminate suffering
throws a pall of darkness over the soul. It is the Sphinx's riddle, which it is
death not to solve. Who has not asked as the heathen did of the missionary, "Why God not kill Devil?"
When Sojourner Truth was seeking to free her
children from slavery, and in direct extremity knew not where to turn for money
or aid, she prayed, "O God, if I was
rich as you be, and you as poor as I be, I'd help you, you know I would. Now
help me."
If God is so rich, why am I, his child, so poor?
If God is so strong, why does he permit my enemies—sin, temptation, disease,
pain, death of my dearest, to overwhelm me, so that I must exclaim:
“All
thy waves and thy billows have gone over me?”
If God is so wise and good, why does he let
disaster, disappointment, losses, heartbreak, come
upon
us till it would seem as if the tempest would never be over, or the sun shine
again?
This
Problem is Universal
It
confronts every individual at some time in his life. It belongs to every age.
It belongs to different periods of that history, to the Egyptian bondage, to
the Exile, to the Maccabean period, and to the history of the Church.
The
Book of Job
The Book of Job is the divine light shining on this problem giving all the lines of solution possible in the twilight of the early ages, to be seen at last in the full blaze following the dayspring Jesus brought from on high. The Book of Revelation furnishes a most interesting parallel to the Book of Job, and aids in its understanding. In both cases the beginning is happy and peaceful; then follows a long period of conflict; and in both the ending is a great and glorious success both in character and in the outward expression.
The
Literary Form
The basis of the Book of Job was an historical fact. Job was a real man who underwent such severe trials and disasters that they made a lasting
impression upon his age, and the ages following. Ezekiel (14:14), and James (5:11) both mention Job. The Book of Job is a divinely inspired poem, drama, or epic, founded on fact, and true to fact,
and to God, the whole book is lifted to a higher sphere, and given more effective power.
The
Epic of the Inner Life
John F. Genung in his
work, "The Epic of the Inner
Life," comments on the Book of Job.
"The poem centers in a hero,
whose spiritual achievements it makes known to us...It is a record of a sublime
epic action, whose scene is not the tumultuous battle-field, nor the arena of
rash adventure, but the solitary soul of a righteous man...Under these
discourses we are to trace not the building of a system, but the progress of a
character, tried, developed, victorious” Goethe said, "I have never had an affliction which did not turn into a
poem."
The
Age and Date of the Book
The period when Job lived, to which his personal story belongs, the scene of the drama, is best understood to be the age of the Patriarchs some two thousand years before God.
The
Structure of the Book of Job
It
consists of five divisions.
·
Division
One. Chapter 1 and 2, the prologue, in prose, the
story on which the rest of the book is founded. It consists of five scenes,
some on earth and some in heaven. The speakers are Jehovah, Job, Satan, four
Messengers, and Job’s wife.
·
Division
Two. Chapters 3-31, in poetic form, the colloquy
[conversation] between Job and his three friends, continued through three
rounds. Besides these there was an audience of neighbors, citizens, children,
visitors, rabble.
·
Division
Three. Chapters 32-37. The oration of Elihu. Poetry.
Job, his three friends and citizens form the audience. The oration was cut
short by the storm.
·
Division Four. Chapters 38-41. God speaks
from the whirlwind. Poetry. Job, his three fiends, Elihu, and citizens form the
audience.
·
Division Five. Chapters 42:1-6. Poetry.
Brief conversation between the Lord and Job. Prose, verses 7-17. The complete
restoration of Job is told. His spiritual and material prosperity is recorded.
These five divisions provide five solutions to the problem of the mystery of suffering.
The Mystery of Suffering, God’s Word in its Twofold Aspect—Its Relation to God and its Relation to Man
·
Suffering is a test
·
Suffering is a punishment
·
Suffering is a discipline
·
Suffering is sometimes an insoluble
mystery
·
Suffering that comes to a good man always
leads to true success at last The life of a righteous man is never a tragedy.
Persons and Scenes
Persons
·
Jehovah
·
Sons of God
·
Satan
·
Job, a wealthy sheik
·
Job's wife
·
A field hand
·
A shepherd
·
A drover
·
A house servant
·
Eliphaz, a venerable sheik from Teman
·
Bilhad, a scholar from Shuah
·
Zophar, a prince of Naamah
·
Elihu, a young chief from Buz
·
Job's brothers
·
Job's sisters
·
Neighbors
·
Citizens
·
Boys
·
Crowd
Scenes
·
Job's home at Uz, a walled town
surrounded by broad fields
·