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Job is going to attack the optimistic conventional piety that is typified in the Book of Proverbs.
He's going to challenge the assumption that there is a moral world order. The issues that
are raised in this book are twofold: first, why God permits blatant injustice and undeserved
suffering and evil to exist in the world, and second of all, whether people will be
virtuous when they are afflicted and suffering. In other words, are people righteous only
because God will reward them for it, or are they righteous because of the intrinsic and
inherent value of righteousness? Those are the two issues. Now literarily, the book contains
two primary elements. First, we have a prose story and that provides a framework for the
book, that's chapters 1 and 2 and then it returns in chapter 42 at the end of the book.
Into this prose framework a large poetic section of dialogue and speeches has been inserted.
So there are two main literary components. Now the prose framework concerning a scrupulously
righteous man named Job, afflicted by horrendous calamity, was probably a standard Ancient
Near Eastern folktale of great antiquity. The story isn't set in Israel; it's not about
an Israelite. It's set in Edom. Job is an eastern magnate who dwells in the country
of Uz, not an Israelite. But the Israelite author has used this older Ancient Near Eastern
legend about a man named Job for his own purposes. The name Job, which in Hebrew is pronounced,
iyyov, is bivalent in meaning. It can mean "enemy" in Hebrew, by changing vowels around;
but it's the root for enemy, oyev, or, if we take it in Aramaic, it can mean "one who
repents," "a repentant one." And as we're going to see, the name will be appropriate
in both senses as the story progresses. Chapters 1 and 2 have this prose prologue about the
pious and prosperous Job and his devastation, which is the result of a challenge which is
put to God. At the end of that prologue, at the end of chapter 2, he has three friends
who come to sit with him in silence for seven days. The silence doesn't last very long because
we move then into the large poetic section and that extends from chapter 3 all the way
to chapter 42, verse 7. Looking now specifically at the poetic section: First, you have a dialogue
between Job and his three friends that goes from chapter 3 to chapter 31, verse40. And
it can be divided into three cycles of speeches. Job opens each cycle--so the first speech
in each cycle is by Job--and then his friends speak in a regular pattern. First, Eliphaz
with Job responding and then Bildad with Job responding and then Zophar; and you have this
pattern of six speeches. It occurs three times but in fact the third time the reply by Zophar
is omitted and that deviation ensures that Job has the first and the last word. He has
a summation speech in chapters 29 to 31. At first, the friends seek to comfort Job and
to explain his suffering but they become increasingly harsh, ultimately bearing a callous contempt
for Job's condition. Now this section closes with the long speech by Job, as I said: 29
to 31. He's lamenting the loss of his past, pleasant life. He protests his innocence,
he calls on God to answer. But then Elihu, this previously unannounced fourth friend
appears. He gives four speeches from chapters32 to 37. He admonishes Job; he defends God's
justice, and then this is followed by a poetic discourse between God who poses a series of
rhetorical questions and Job who appears contrite. And that section also falls into four parts
rather like Elihu's speech. You have two long speeches by Yahweh, two short ones by Job.
Finally, there's a concluding prose epilogue that vindicates Job. God criticizes Job's
friends, and then in a rather unexpected happy ending, we have Job restored to his fortunes
and finally experiencing a peaceful death.