Read on Twitter
Sometimes Job 19 just HITS you and it's like OH GOD THE FEELS. And then you bump into Job 24:1 and it's like SERIOUSLY WHY.
Seriously though how you weigh the arguments in Job, who you think is in the right, how often you hear Job's friends in your own theological reasoning, is probably a kind of semi-litmus test we should administer more often.
My read of it, and the plain reading of the Job 1:1, is that basically Job is correct in his complaint against God, that the friends trying to offer theodicies are wrong, and that God does not in fact challenge the truth of Job's claims.
That to attempt to reconcile suffering and evil with a good God is almost inherently a kind of blasphemy, because God *is not reconciled* to evil, but pledges destruction of it.
Elihu's speech definitely prefigures God's speech and comes nearest to it, but even Elihu cannot resist questioning whether Job is really righteous, whether there is not in fact some deep moral order to the universe.
In fact, there is not a moral order and everything is chaos.
In fact, there is not a moral order and everything is chaos.
Whenever you find yourself agreeing with Job's friends rather than the man we were told is blameless and upright and suffering as part of a completely arbitrary divine gamble, perhaps you are in the wrong.
God is not teaching Job. God is not improving Job. God is not helping Job. There is not a higher logic. There is merely The Fall. The absolute disordering of God's world. And when God shows up, He does not endorse any theodicy offered, not accuse Job of sin.
He simply asserts HIS CREATIVENESS. He appeals to Creation! Because that's the correct argument! We see "were you there when..." as merely about cowing Job. But it isn't! It's an actual argument!
God is saying: I DID NOT MAKE IT THIS WAY.
God is saying: I DID NOT MAKE IT THIS WAY.
And when God reveals His power, we see Him as revealing it against Job, even though God appears to be most directly and immediately responding to *Elihu* to a first approximation, and then *turns* to Job.
But even if that reading is wrong, the key point is that God rebuke's Job's *presumption* but does not actually endorse any of the theodicies offered. Nor does God offer any justification for His actions.
God simply says: BEHOLD MY POWER AND CREATIVENESS.
He invites Job to step into the court of judgment, *and Job blinks*. But I think not because Job has now identified some theodicy at work or some sin in himself, but because he has understood his mistake.
He invites Job to step into the court of judgment, *and Job blinks*. But I think not because Job has now identified some theodicy at work or some sin in himself, but because he has understood his mistake.
Job, like the others, expects some kind of orderly justice. He expects vindication. He expects to have a moral order revealed.
But God's response is: THERE IS NO ORDER IN A BROKEN CREATION. Creation was orderly. This world is not.
But God's response is: THERE IS NO ORDER IN A BROKEN CREATION. Creation was orderly. This world is not.
Also lest you think my argument is flippant: God literally in the last chapter, we often forget, turns around and talks TO JOB'S FRIENDS, and says, basically, "You absolute idiots. Job was correct in everything he said. Go and do some penitence you complete disgraces."
Like I feel we don't acknowledge enough that the story ends by God saying, "EVERYTHING JOB SAID ABOUT ME WAS TRUE"
