INTRODUCING THE OLD TESTAMENT — JOB — by Dr. W. Graham Scroggie
From ‘Know Your Bible’ © Pickering and Inglis Ltd., London
Keyword: Tested
Chapters: 42
The author of this writing is unknown, as are the time of writing and the period in which Job lived. That the hero of the poem was a real person and not the creation of imagination is evident from such references as Ezekiel 14:14, 20, and James 5 :11, as well as from internal evidence.
The dramatic form in which the story is cast in no way invalidates its historical trustworthiness.
So little is there in the poem to indicate the age in which Job lived that opinions have varied by as much as 1,000 years. Some take the view that he lived be-fore Abraham, and would place the story between the eleventh and twelfth chapters of Genesis; and others would place him in the captivity or post-captivity period. This shows that the value of the writing is quite independent of date, and is indeed, as to its great message, dateless.
MAGNIFICENT DRAMA
The first thing that claims our attention is the form of the story. There are epic and lyric elements in the composition, but the poem is a magnificent drama, in which no element of dramatic effect is wanting.
This book might well be placed with the poetical writings, for as to its form, it is a poem; but having regard for its theme, we place it with the wisdom writings the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. These three books deal with the fundamental principles of the Bible and of all religious philosophy.
In Job we see a man who “was perfect and upright, one that feared God, and eschewed evil.”
The mistake of Satan was in thinking that Job served God for what he could get. The mistake of Job’s wife was in thinking that with the loss of the visible and human all was lost. The mistake of Job’s friends was in thinking that Job‘s suffering was the direct outcome of his sin. The mistake of Elihu was in thinking that he was right, and that all the others were wrong; and the mistake of Job was in thinking that God was unkind.
THE DIVINE GREATNESS
The problem of pain is not solved in this book, but we are shown what kind of a God God is. We are shown first his power in creation,
and man’s weakness; and then, his wisdom in government, and man’s ignorance.
At the end of the mighty drama Satan is routed, the friends are rebuked and Job is rewarded. “The Eternal does not answer our insistent questions; God does not explain, but he does give to the anguished spirit such a sense of the divine greatnessthat questioning ceases in the peace of submission.”
This poem has manifold values. There is a philosophic value in its discussion of the underlying meaning of life as a whole; a scientific value in its observation of nature; a prophetical value in its authoritative divine message; a biographical value in itsdelineation of character; a rhetorical value in its many and marvellous speeches.
There is a historical value in its references to places, people, and customs; a literary value in its whole concept and form; a providential value in its view that God allows his people to suffer for their good; a spiritual value in its revelation of another world and superhuman beings; and a practical value in its teaching on fearing and trusting God.
THE THEME OF THE DRAMA
The theme of the drama in the book of Job is “The Mystery of Suffering,” or “The Problem of Pain,” and in the discussion of this are introduced God, Satan, Job, the friends and Elihu.
The prose prologue begins with Job and God, and the prose epilogue ends with them. Between the prologue and the epilogue is the drama describing the struggle.
A KEY TO HISTORY
The book, it has been said, is a key to the whole Bible and to man’s history from creation to completed redemption:
(1) Man unfallen and tried;
(2) sinning and suffering;
(3) seeking human help in legality, morality, philosophy;
(4) needing and receiving a revelation from God;
(5) humbled, penitent, believing; and
(6) restored to a better estate than at first.
The poem teaches that suffering is not always penal and retributive, but may be disciplinary and educative.
Of Job, Thomas Carlyle has said :
“I call this book, apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever written. One feels, in-deed, as if it were not He-brew; such a noble universality, different from noble patriotism or sectarianism, reigns in it. A noble book, all men’s book! It is our first, oldest statement of the never ending problem
man’s destiny and God’s ways with him here on this earth. And all in such free, flowing outlines; grand in its sincerity, its simplicity, its epic melody and repose of reconcilement.
NOTHING OF EQUAL MERIT
“There is the seeing eye, the mildly understanding heart. So true every way; true insight and vision for all things, material things no less than spiritual. … Such living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciliation; oldest choral melody, as of the heart of mankind; so soft, and great; as the summer midnight, as the world with its seas and stars! There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit.”
THE FIVE GREAT PROBLEMS
The central part of the Old Testament, comprising the wisdom and poetical books, treats of the five great problems of all ages: Job, the problem of suffering; Psalms, the problem of
prayer; Proverbs, the problem of conduct; Ecclesiastes, the problem the chief good; Song of Solomon, the problem of love.
The solution of all thse problems is found only in Christ. He suffered, he prayed, he behaved perfectly, he revealed God, and he is love.
