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Job 21-37, Volume 18A

ZONDERVAN

The Third Cycle (21:1–27:23)

Farm/Structure/Setting

The structure of this seventh speech of Job is simple. The poem has only three main elements: exordium addressed to the friends (vv 2–5), a disputation speech about the fate of the wicked (vv 6–33), and a closing address to the friends (v 34). Within the main body of the poem, the friends are consistently in view, though they are addressed directly only in vv 27–30 ("I know your thoughts ... for you say ... Have you not asked ...?"). The rhetorical questions in vv 16, 17, 19, 31 do not of course necessarily imply the presence of the friends in the speaker's consciousness, but they do suggest it.

The strophic structure of the speech is far from clear. The speech contains several major elements that can be identified: vv 2–5: address to the friends; vv 8–15: depiction of the happiness of the wicked, their children and animals; vv 19–21: the wicked themselves should bear their own punishment; vv 28–33: even the death of the wicked is comfortable. But how far the treatment of each theme extends beyond its core is the problem.

Fohrer analyzed the sections (I–III) and strophes (1–8) thus:

strophe 1 vv 2–5 5 lines
Section I strophe 2 vv 6–9 4 lines
strophe 3 vv 10–13 4 lines
Section II strophe 4 vv 14–18 4 lines (omitting v 16)
strophe 5 vv 19–22 4 lines
strophe 6 vv 23–26 4 lines
Section III strophe 7 vv 27–30 4 lines
strophe 8 vv 31–34 4 lines

Terrien's analysis largely agrees with Fohrer's, except that he divides the speech into six strophes, each consisting of two substrophes; thus I 2–3, 4–6; II 7–9, 10–13; III 14–15, 16–18; IV 19–21, 22 (he thinks something is missing after v 22); V 23–26, 27–28; VI 29–31, 32–34 (the division by lines is 2, 3, 3, 4, 2, 3, 3, 1, 4, 2, 3, 3).

In Skehan's analysis, only one of these strophes (vv 2–6) coincides with Fohrer's. He divides the stanzas thus: vv 2–6, 7–12,13–17, 18–20, 21+23–26, 27–29, 30–34 (thus 5, 6, 5, v 3, 5, 3, 5 lines), removing v 22 to follow 22:2 (as NAB).

Webster finds nine strophes: vv 2–3, 4–6, 7–10, 11–15, 16–18, 19–21, 22–26, 27–29, 30–33 (with v 34 standing outside the strophic structure). Van der Lugt identifies three main strophes (vv 5–15, 16–26, 27–33), with a preface in vv 2–4 (but v 5 must surely be connected with vv 2–4, since the focus is still upon the friends).

RSV has the major breaks before vv 17 and 27, NEB before vv 7, 16, 23, and 27 (REB dispenses with the one before 16), JB before vv 14, 17, and 27, NIV before vv 4,17, 22, 27, 34, NJPS before vv 7 and 27, and GNB before vv 4, 7, 14, 17, 19, 23, 27, 34.

A comparative table of the beginnings of strophes shows that only at one place is there complete agreement about a strophic division (v 27), though vv 7 and 17 (or 19) are also quite strongly supported. (See table on facing page, Strophe Beginnings in Job 21.)

The firmest points in a strophic analysis are these: v 6 must be attached to what follows (see Comment), and v 27 marks a major division in that the description of the evildoer is supplanted at this point by direct address to the friends. Clearly vv 8–10, 11–13, 14–15, 17–18,19–21, 23–26, 28–30, and 31–33 are unbreakable units, and vv 6–7 must be a preface to 8–13, and 27 to 28–34; but how these units should be grouped and how vv 16 and 22 are to be attached are uncertain. There are no significant changes of subject or orientation from v 6 to v 33, but the following movements in the argument can be discerned: (1) the wicked do not live unhappy lives, as the friends have argued (vv 7–13); (2) their godlessness goes unpunished (vv 14–18); (3) the argument that retribution is visited on the descendants of evildoers undermines the doctrine of retribution itself (vv 19–21); (4) even if it were true it would be irrelevant, for everyone has a common fate in death (vv 22–26); (5) the evidence from experience is contrary to the doctrine of retribution, for even notable sinners flourish and are respected after their death (vv 27–33). The Translation suggests the following division: vv 2–5, 6–7, 8–10, 11–13, 14–16, 17–21, 22–26, 27–30, 31–34, i.e., nine strophes of 4, 2, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 4, 4 lines, respectively.

Throughout this poem there are regular bicola, interrupted only by the tricola at v 19 (at the beginning of the second major section of the speech) and at v 33 (the last verse of the subject matter proper, v 34 being a pendant of address to the friends).

The genre of the poem is that of the disputation speech. All its elements derive from the wisdom instruction, and as a whole it has the character of an argument, picking up the opinions of other speakers already expressed and attempting to refute them. Typical of the exordium in the wisdom instruction is the demand to be heard (vv 2–3; cf. 15:17) and the request for silence (v 5; contrast 6:24). We note also the speaker's prefatory account of the strong emotion that his subject matter inspires in him (v 6; cf. 4:12–15). Rhetorical questions are particularly frequent (vv 7, 16, 17–18, 19, 21, 22, 29–30, 31, 34; plus those within quoted speech in vv 15, 28).

Perhaps we should recognize here also parody of a traditional form of wisdom instruction, the poem on the blessedness of the pious (Fohrer) ; such a parody, applying the language of blessedness to the wicked, is of course met with frequently in the Psalms (cf. Pss 10:5–6; 73:3–7, 10). The features of such blessedness are long life, strength (v 7), offspring (v 8), security (v 9), abundance of possessions (v 10), innocent (!) happiness (vv 11–12), prosperity, and a peaceful death (v 13). Unlike the Psalms, however, the parody is encountered in the context not of the lament but of argument.

Not a parody but a readaptation of traditional language is found in vv 23–26, where a topos on the annihilation of distinctions in Sheol is drawn upon (cf. 3:17–19) for a new purpose: here the material functions to support the argument that the doctrine of retribution is invalid and that death is not a "punishment."

The citation of words of opponents (in this case, of the wicked and of the friends) is a common feature of the wisdom instruction. In vv 14–15 the wicked say to God, "Depart from us," and ask rhetorically "What is the Almighty that we should serve him?" (similar citations in Pss 10:11; 14:1; 53:1 [2]; 73:11). In v 28 the friends say, "Where is the house of the prince?" (RSV attributes v 19 also to the friends, but see Note 19.a). The citation of the friends is not verbatim, and of course the citation of the evildoers' words is wholly fictive (see Comment on vv 14–16).

The argument form is most evident in vv 19–21, where a hypothetical objection to Job's position is put forward as a question, "Is God storing up his punishment for his children?" and answered by a series of futures with jussive force ("let him requite, let his own eyes see, let him drink") that function as a critique of the traditional doctrine, and by a motive clause introduced by [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "for."

Finally, the wisdom instruction is sustained by the appeal to experience (vv 29–33). Usually such an appeal takes the form of an account of the speaker's own experience (as in 4:12–17; 5:27; cf. 13:1) or of traditional experience (cf. 8:8–10; 15:17–19; 20:4–5), but here it is an invitation to glean knowledge from contemporaries of the speaker, namely travelers. Job has of course always been arguing from his own experience, but this is the first time (13:1 notwithstanding) that he has used such a form of words. He has not previously said, "This is what I (or others) have experienced; therefore I know it is true," but in this speech he imitates the friends much more closely than in his other speeches.

The function of the speech is to support in a more logical fashion the view of the doctrine of retribution that Job has already arrived at more instinctively. In previous speeches he had denied the validity of the doctrine in that he, as a righteous man, was suffering; now he denies the doctrine by arguing that the unrighteous do not suffer. In a wider horizon, then, we could say that the function of the speech is to further defend his innocence, or, indeed, to prepare for the oath of innocence he will swear in chap. 31 (so Fohrer).

The tonality of the speech is to be discerned from the exordium of vv 2–5 and the peroration of v 34. There is a distinct harshness here, not of course unparalleled by previous criticisms of the friends by Job (cf., e.g., 6:15, 27; 13:4; 16:2) but all the more striking because the speech is as a whole comparatively low-key, impersonal, and unemotional. In fact, the strongest emotional language in the whole speech concerns Job's attitude to the friends, rather than, as previously, his own suffering and his obloquy of God. To the friends he says here that the only consolation they could offer would be to be silent (v 2; cf. v 5b)—which is a contradiction in terms and so completely undermines their value and significance (they are nothing if they are not "comforters"; why else are they there in Uz?). But sharper than that is Job's assumption that when he has finished speaking they will resume their "mockery" (v 3); that means to say that that is all he can hear in their speeches. In tune with that sentence is his closing thrust (v 34): their consolations are "nugatory" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) since they contain no acceptance of him as an innocent man, but not quite empty of significance, for what they do contain is a residue ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) of impiety or faithlessness ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) inasmuch as they tell lies about God and his governance of the world.

The nodal verse must be the opening rhetorical question of the speech proper, "Why do the wicked live ...?" (v 7). This stands in headline position, and from it devolves the speech as a whole. The answer to the question, though it is never explicitly stated, is evident throughout the speech. It is: "Because there is no moral order in the universe, no principle of retribution and no divine justice."

Comment

2–34 In this seventh speech of Job, there is a different note from the others, something a little anticlimactic. From his first, self-pitying, speech in chap. 3 to his sixth, vigorous and forward-looking, speech in chap. 19, there has been a crescendo of decisiveness, of mounting determination to take things into his own hands and not to bow meekly before the onslaughts of fate, the personal animus of the Almighty. In chap. 19 we saw him, at the height of his self-confidence, expressing his belief in the certainty of his vindication, MI know that my champion lives" (19:25), no matter how long that outcome may take, and no matter whether it will eventuate before his death or not. Throughout, he has been wrapped up in his own misery, struggling with the tension between his innocence and his suffering. And his speeches have given slight recognition to the arguments and even the presence of the friends. In every one of the speeches he has lapsed from response to his interlocutors into soliloquy or address to God. But here in this speech he enters into direct dispute with the friends, addressing them and them alone from the beginning to the end of the speech. He actually refers to their arguments—something he has rarely done before. And his language is cooler, less aggressive.

The ostensible issue in the speech is whether the friends have been right in their portrayal of the fate of the wicked. Eliphaz in chap. 15 has depicted the wicked as "in torment all his days" (15:20); Bildad in chap. 18 has focused on the last days of the typical wicked man: 'Truly, the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out" (18:5); Zophar in chap. 20 has emphasized the contrast between the "triumph cry" (20:5) of the godless and the annihilation that eventually befalls him. But what is Job's interest in engaging in this disputation? He is not one of the wicked, and he resents every implication that he is. Can it be that he speaks only in the interest of objective truth, that he cannot let his interlocutors get away with a false opinion? That is certainly an element in his motivation. But there is more to it than that. There is a hidden implicate of this argument about the fate of the wicked that affects him personally. If the wicked are not punished, it can only mean that there is no correlation between deed and consequence. But then, if recompense is not meted out for the wicked, why should we expect it to be granted to the righteous?

By force of his moral conviction of his innocence, Job reached by chap. 19 a point of equilibrium over the question of his righteousness despite the evidence of his suffering; now it is time when he can support that same position on grounds of logic and publicly observable facts. He is not personally concerned in the least about the fate of the wicked; but the fate of the righteous is an issue that he has to ventilate with all the thoroughness he is capable of. "His own relation with God belonged to those things of which people say 'I must settle it or go mad.' The question of God's moral government looms up behind it, and is a question of far more radical significance, but it is more abstract, and does not touch him on the raw" (Peake).

In short, Job's argument is this: if the wicked are not recompensed, neither are the righteous. That is the simple meaning of his suffering: there is no meaning to it at all. (Fohrer takes it all quite differently: he thinks it is a further argument for Job's innocence. If the wicked lead successful and happy lives, and Job's is so miserable, Job cannot be one of the wicked. But Job does not argue that he is not wicked, just that he is innocent.)

2–5 Job's address to the friends is more bitter than it has been previously.

2 How do friends usually offer consolation? Various rituals of consolation are attested (e.g., sharing a meal, 42:11; cf. Jer 16:7), but presumably acts of consolation are normally accompanied by comforting words (for the combination of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and words, cf. Isa 40:1; Gen 50:21; see also H. J. Stoebe, TLOT, 1:734–39). See also, especially on the role of consolation as a combating of grief through rational argument, C. A. Newsom, "'The Consolations of God': Assessing Job's Friends across a Cultural Abyss," in Reading from Right to Left, FS D. J. A. Clines, ed. J. C. Exum and H. G. M. Williamson, JSOTSup 373 (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003) 347–58. Job ironically observes that the biggest consolation his friends could offer him would be to say nothing at all. Their speeches defending the doctrine of retribution have made them into "torturer-comforters" (16:2), even though they themselves (or Eliphaz at least) have represented their words as "God's encouragements" (15:11). It would not of course be a consolation for them to keep silence; it would be less than a consolation, as the turn of phrase shows: "let that [your silence] be the comfort you offer me." But the mere absence of their persistent putting him in the wrong would almost seem a consolation in itself. Job knows he is right, of course, and he does not want to be gainsaid any longer. Whatever they say will be wrong, and their "consolation" is bound to be, at the end of the day, "vanity, emptiness" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and "deceit" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], perhaps meaning "infidelity to God") (v 34).

3 The language of this exordium is very conventional, and quite artificial to boot. Given the rhythm of the dialogues, there is no likelihood that his interlocutors will fail to "bear with" him or let him speak until he has finished. No one has interrupted anyone so far, and none of the speakers has any reason to think it will be otherwise. What else, in any case, are they all doing in Uz, or in this book, except sitting there speechifying? (For similar promises and requests to be silent, see 6:24; 13:13; 33:31.) And the invitation to "mock on" after he has finished is not only ironic (for he wishes no such thing) but unjust, for we have heard no mockery in their speeches, nothing worse than dogmatism, wrongheaded advice, and well-meant criticism. Zophar indeed has accused Job of "mockery" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], 11:3), by which he means mockery against God; if Job does not accept that God is right to punish him, he mocks God's justice. And Elihu will say of Job that he "drinks up mockery like water" (34:7, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), meaning that mockery of God is meat and drink to Job. But the friends do not themselves "mock" Job, and Job is being petulant here if he thinks that is their attitude or if he needs to ask for their forbearance before he launches himself upon another speech.

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Excerpted from Job 21-37, Volume 18A by David J. A. Clines, Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard, Glenn W. Barker. Copyright © 2006 Thomas Nelson, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERVAN.
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