The book of Job in the Bible is not about Job. “Job” is the title of the book, and he is a main character, but the book is not about him. In the beginning of the book, Job loses all his wealth, his children and his health, but the book is not about suffering. When you get to the end of the book, all of what Job lost at the beginning is restored, and then some. So, what is going on here?
If you go to the book of Job, thinking that you are getting an answer to why there is suffering in the world or in your life; you’re going for the wrong reason. And you are going to be disappointed. It is not going to tell you that.
Dr. John Walton, an Old Testament professor at Wheaton College, has a YouTube playlist of 30 mini lectures on Job. The above quote and the discussion that follows on were based on his first lecture, “Interpretation problems and false ideas about Job.” Dr. Walton also wrote the commentary on Job for NIV Application Commentary Series, for which he was one of the contributing editors for the Old Testament.
Job is unique, not only in the Old Testament, but within the entire ancient world. The first problem Walton wants to address is what does the book of Job actually say. The Hebrew in the book is the most difficult in the Old Testament. There are many words in Job that only occur once in the Hebrew Bible. So, there are difficulties understanding the meanings of some words and how they are used.
Then there is the issue of what kind of literature or genre Job is—how did the author communicate what he wanted to say? Walton sees Job as a unified, coherent text. In his commentary on Job, Walton said Job is unarguably wisdom literature, rather than historical literature. “As wisdom literature it makes no claims about the nature of the events.” A discussion about whether the events are real events misses the mark.
As wisdom literature, Job could be thought of as a “thought experiment.” If this is the case, the author is using various parts of Job to pose philosophical scenes that address wisdom themes. Walton said in both philosophy and science, hypothetical situations are explored for their philosophical value. “The point is not to claim that the events in the thought experiment did happen, but they draw their philosophical strength from the realistic nature of the imaginative device.”
So, if the book of Job is a thought experiment, the reader should draw conclusions about God from the final point, not from every detail in the book. For example, the opening scene in heaven is not intended to inform us about God’s activities and nature. “We would not rule out the possibility that such a scenario could happen, but we would be mistaken to think that author seeks to unfold a series of historical events. It is wisdom literature.”
A common misperception when reading the book is that Job is on trial. Job thinks he’s being accused of wrongdoing and is being punished for it. He claims he’s been wrongly accused and treated inappropriately; he sees himself as the victim. However, he thinks he’s on trial and so do his friends. Job has trials; he’s not on trial. The book makes this very clear from the beginning; Job is not on trial.
The book is not about Job. It doesn’t present Job as a role model for us to follow in the midst of suffering. It is about God. We need to see what it teaches us about God, not what it teaches about Job. It is a wisdom book, and wisdom is ultimately about God.
It is not a treatise on God’s justice. If you look for an explanation of God’s justice in Job, you’ll be disappointed. The book of Job does not explain or defend God’s justice. Job’s accusations against God concern His justice. And our questions about suffering often concern justice. “But the book of Job does not defend God’s justice. Instead, it defends God’s wisdom.”
If we think it defends God’s justice, then we’ll try to justify or somehow explain what happened to Job. But to do that, we’d need all the information there is on the issue, but only God is omniscient. From the beginning of the book, we know Job and his friends do not have all the information about what’s going on. They know nothing about the opening scene in heaven. “We are not in a position to try to talk about whether God is just or not.”
The book of Job is also not designed to help us think about suffering. Rather, it is designed to help us think about God when we are suffering. “That’s what we really need to know.” It is a book about trusting God, rather than answers that explain the suffering we see in the world. Trusting God should be our response when we don’t know what’s going on—as it was with Job.
The book of Job is more about what constitutes righteousness than about why we suffer. In Job 1:9-10, Satan said to God, “Does Job fear God for no reason?” Then Satan said God has put a hedge around Job and all that he has. Walton thought Satan is asking God what really motivates Job’s righteousness. Here is one of the theological, philosophical issues grappled with in Job.
If Job behaves the way he does because he expects to get prosperity and reward, his “so-called righteousness is just going to dissolve in the wind.” This seems to be the view expressed by Job’s wife, who asks why he continues to hold on to his integrity and counsels him to curse God and die (Job 2:9). The book of Job challenges its readers to be righteous even when they are suffering. “It challenges us to be righteous because righteousness is what should characterize our lives.” It calls us to be faithful because God is God, and not because he is generous.
“God is not a vending machine,” where we insert righteous behavior and expect his favor in return.
This was a retelling of Session 1 of Dr. John Walton’s YouTube series of 30 mini lectures on the book of Job, “Interpretation problems and false ideas bout Job.” Dr. Walton also wrote the commentary on Job for NIV Application Commentary Series, for which he was one of the contributing editors for the Old Testament.
