What does Gutiérrez see as the message of God’s initial speech to Job? Write 2-3 sentences. Use the following content: Let me summarize quickly what has been said in the second part of this book, which has described a milestone in Job’s effort to learn how to speak of God. Job began by talking of his suffering and then of the injustice he saw in his individual lot. His point of departure was both his own experience and his faith in the living God; it was on that basis that he challenged, and gradually dismantled, the doctrine of retribution that his three friends expounded in a


pompous and abstract manner, and that Elihu was subsequently to explain more intelligently.

The dialogue has, however, led Job to broaden his vision. A shift pregnant with consequences has taken place. Job now reflects on the situation of others—namely, the poor, and their undeserved suffering. “Yet God remains deaf to prayer!” (24:12), he wonders as he raises this key issue. Going more deeply into this matter of the poor, he recalls the great requirements of the covenant (without mentioning the covenant by name): real belief in God entails solidarity with the poor so as to ease their undeserved suffering by establishing "uprightness and judgment."24 This is a major theme in the prophetic tradition of Israel.

Job next calls to mind his own actions in this area. By means of them he had been able to speak of God. Now that he is sharing the lot of the poor in his own flesh, his talk of God becomes more profound and truthful. The point is that commitment to the poor provides firm ground for prophetic talk of God. The prophets repeatedly stress the importance of fidelity to the covenant. When they deal so sternly with the sins of their people, they are speaking in place of God (that is what nabi, the Hebrew word for “prophet,” means). At the same time, in their discourses they talk primarily about God.

Their language has its historical roots in commitment to the poor, who are the favorites of God. In that context aspects of God’s nature hidden in other approaches to God come to light. At the same time God makes new demands on human behavior: as Proverbs says, “he who mocks the poor insults his Maker” (17:5). God is the ultimate and comprehensive ground of human behavior. This is the central idea in the ethic of the reign of God, the proclamation of which becomes more and more definite as the Bible advances, reaching its full form in Jesus the Messiah.

This realization, which is partially attained by Elihu, gives Job a way of talking about God on the basis of his experience of suffering and injustice. To go out of himself and help other sufferers (without waiting until his own problems are first resolved) is to find a way to God. The reason for his own unjust situation is a question that still gnaws at him, but he now begins to see that he may not let it be an obstacle to immediate commitment to the poor. The needs of others cannot be left in abeyance until everything has become clear.

In addition, solidarity with the marginalized and suffering of this world adds weight to Job’s demand for an explanation of the relationship between a just God and the suffering of the innocent. Above all, however, Job sees that commitment to the poor puts everything on a solid basis, a basis located outside his individual world, in the needs of others who cannot be ignored. All this constitutes the beginning of an answer to his questions. That is, it is a step on the way to correct talk of God: a God who, as Job knows in the depths of his heart, wants justice. That is why Job can believe that in practicing justice he is doing the will of God.

But this kind of talk about God—talk that may be described as “prophetic”—is inadequate. Job’s thirst for understanding, which his trials have awakened and inflamed, is not satisfied. Gropingly, and resisting false images, he looks insatiably for a deeper insight into divine justice and an unlimited encounter with the God in whom he believes and hopes.
According to Gustavo Gutiérrez, the message of God’s initial speech to Job in Job chapters 38 and 39 is that the mystery of human suffering and the complexities of the world cannot be neatly explained within the narrow confines of human understanding and theories of retribution. God’s response points to His creative power and wisdom, highlighting that divine justice and the operation of the world are far beyond human comprehension. This understanding challenges Job to recognize God’s sovereignty and the limitations of his own knowledge, which is intertwined with Gutiérrez’s broader point about the inadequacy of humanity’s grasp of the divine and the importance of commitment to the marginalized as a pathway towards a more profound and truthful relationship with God.
What does he think is the message of the second set of God’s speeches to Job (Job 40-41)? (pg. 77-80)? Write 2-3 sentences. Below is the content of pages 77-80.
each trial Job is said to “persist in his integrity.” This persistence shows that his faith and behavior are not inspired by hope of material reward. It is thus made clear from the outset that gratuitousness is a main characteristic of authentic faith in God. The book will end on the same note.

The language used by Job in these opening chapters is often found on the lips of the poor who are believers. How often we hear simple folk use the very words of Job at the loss of loved ones: “God gave them to me, God has taken them away from me.” This faith is sometimes described as “the faith of a cleaning lady,” but this seems inaccurate. There is something deeper here, something that more learned types find difficult to grasp. The faith of the people is characterized by a strong sense of the lordship of God. It has a spontaneous understanding of what Yahweh says in Leviticus: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with me” (25:23). The believing people is deeply convinced that everything belongs to the Lord and comes from the Lord.1 This conviction is well expressed in the beautiful prayer of David: “All things come from thee, and of thy own have we given thee. For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as all our fathers were” (1 Chron. 29:14–15).

Job’s language here is, in outline, the language of contemplation and contains all its values. At the same time, however, his language shares the limitations of the faith of the poor; if one remains at this level, one cannot withstand the onslaught of ideologized ways of talking about God. That is, the faith of simple folk can be manipulated by interpretations alien to their religious experience. Furthermore, as happens in Job’s own case, unremitting poverty and suffering give rise to difficult questions. A quick acceptance of them can signify a resignation to evil and injustice that will later be an obstacle to faith in the God who liberates. The insights present in the faith of the people must therefore be deepened and vitalized, but this process requires certain separations.

In the Book of Job these separations occur when Job’s friends try to justify his sufferings. Job then reacts and debates with these theologians, as we saw. But as his vision broadens and deepens, he realizes that the debate is not with them but with God. In the final analysis, the author of the book shows Job’s theologian friends talking about God but never to God, as Job himself does.2

Job then begins to call for an explanation from a God who seems to avoid him. His friends are incapable of following him along this path; their theology makes it impossible for them. Subsequently, Job speaks as follows of this painful course:

My lament is still rebellious;
despite my groans, his hand is just as heavy.
Will no one help me to know
how to travel to his dwelling? . . .
If I go to the east, he is not there;
or to the west, I still cannot find him.
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If I seek him in the north, he is not to be found,
invisible as ever, if I turn to the south.
And yet he knows every step I take!
Let him test me in the crucible: I shall come out pure
gold.
My footsteps have followed close in his,
I have walked in his way without swerving;
I have not neglected the commandment of his lips,
in my heart I have cherished the words of his mouth
[23:2–3, 8–12].
This difficult journey will not essentially change Job’s recognition that everything comes from God. On the contrary, this conviction will be strengthened and deepened, and will have a new perspective and scope. But the road Job travels will show clearly that his acceptance of God’s will is not simply resignation. His full encounter with his God comes by way of complaint, bewilderment, and confrontation.3

1. Here are some testimonies on this point. A peasant from the mountains says of the care God takes for us: “Like a father he takes care of us in the evils that afflict us, in our poverty and our hunger. . . but he also gets cross at us and punishes us when we do not seek him; he sends us rain and thus shows himself a father.” An Aymara woman believes that “God always is; otherwise we would not be fed and clothed, and nothing would exist; we would live badly if we did not think of him” (cited in “La religiosidad popular en el Perú” [chap. 5, n. 5, above], p. 46). A person from the Amazonia region of Peru says: “God is good and lovable; he saves us and gives us life. We are friends when we approach him” (cited in the excellent book of J. Regan, Hacia la tierra sin mal. Estudios de la religión del pueblo de la Amazonía [Iquitos: Centro de Estudios Teológicos de la Amazonía, 1983]).

2. See D. Patrick, “Job’s Address of God,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 91 (1979) 268–82. The author thinks that in the speeches of Job he can identify “54 verses [addressed] to God in the dialog and four verses in his concluding peroration” (p. 269).

3. See Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/3, part 1, p. 398: "The appearance of mature resolution suggested perhaps by chapters 1–2 was obviously deceptive. Job still has a long way to go before he will reach the point where we find him again in chapter 42. With the fine sayings in 1:21 and 2:10 he has merely plotted the way… He has now to tread it. What it means that Yahweh takes as well as gives, that evil is to be received at His hand as well as good, must now be experienced to the bitter end. The step corresponding to those fine sayings must now be taken."Job’s rebellious attitude is due not so much to his sufferings as to the arguments that his friends develop in their pompous manner. This is clear from his opening monologue (chap. 3), which I discussed earlier; it expresses profound suffering but not the confrontation with God that we find later on. To be more accurate, I would say that a situation that Job considers unjust becomes intolerable when justified by the theological arguments of his three friends. At this point he enters upon a real spiritual struggle with God. The Bible gives us more than than one example of this kind of confrontation; none, however, is so powerful and radical as the one in this book. Job boldly demands that God come forth; that God listen to Job and speak to him. Yet in the final analysis the demand is inspired by a firm trust in God himself.

Three key passages serve to mark a like number of important stages in the spiritual struggle of Job with God in this one-way journey to God that he has undertaken in the name of suffering, hopeful, and bewildered humankind. I refer to 9:33 on the need of an arbiter (Hebrew, mokhiach); 16:19 on the presence of an witness ('ēdh) to the discussion; and 19:25 on the hope of a defender or liberator (gō’ēl). The three roles or functions represent three faces of one and the same God as experienced by one who suffers adversity and is searching.

NEED OF AN ARBITER

“NEED OF AN ARBITER”
The arguments of his friends spur Job to an angry assertion of his innocence. He knows, however, that in a contest with God he must be the loser: “Indeed, I know it is as you say: how could anyone claim to be upright before God?” (9:2). He recognizes that God transcends human beings, but, given the situation he is enduring, the acknowledgment means that he feels trapped. He says as much in the harshest words that the author puts in his mouth:

Even if I am upright, what point is there in answering
him?
I can only plead for mercy with my judge!
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And if he deigned to answer my citation,
I cannot believe he would listen to what I said,
he who crushes me for one hair,
who, for no reason, wounds and wounds again,
not even letting me regain my breath,
with so much bitterness he fills me!
Shall I try force? Look how strong he is!
Or go to court? But who will summon him?
If I prove myself upright, his mouth may condemn me,
even if I am innocent, he may pronounce me
perverse.
But am I innocent? I am no longer sure,
and life itself I despise!
It is all one, and hence I boldly say:
he destroys innocent and guilty alike.
When a sudden deadly scourge descends,
he laughs at the plight of the innocent.
When a country falls into the power of the wicked,
he veils the face of its judges.
Or if not he, who else? [9:15–24].
Job seems close here to speaking ill of God. We have reached the tensest moment in his dispute with the Lord. He asserts and repeats his integrity and innocence, but at the same time criticizes the seemingly irrational way in which God acts: “It is all one, and hence I boldly say: he destroys innocent and guilty alike.” Job also reproaches God with injustice: “He laughs at the plight of the innocent” and allows a country to “fall into the power of the wicked.” In plain language he lets it be known whom he regards as responsible for this situation: “If not he, who else?”

Bold words, these, that have their source in unbearable suffering. And yet such language is not so foreign to the Bible.1 On various occasions, persons of deep faith bitterly question the way God governs the world. An example of someone in a situation very like that of Job is to be found in Psalm 73, which appears in fact to be one of the sources used by the author of the Book of Job. Here are some verses:

As for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had well nigh slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant,
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
For they have no pangs;
their bodies are sound and sleek.
They are not in trouble as other men are;
they are not stricken like other men.
Gustavo Gutiérrez interprets the second set of God’s speeches to Job (Job 40-41) as emphasizing the vast gulf between human and divine perspectives, underscoring God’s unsearchable power and wisdom. He sees these speeches as further challenging Job (and by extension, humanity) to recognise the limitations of human justice and understanding when compared to God’s ultimate sovereignty. Gutiérrez perceives God’s vivid descriptions of the untamable Behemoth and Leviathan as symbols of a reality that cannot be easily controlled or comprehended by humans, elevating the acknowledgment of mystery and humility before the divine. Through these speeches, God invites Job to trust in a providence that is beyond human apprehension and to maintain faith despite the presence of suffering and the absence of easy answers.
What are some of the main ideas of the section ‘Beyond Justice’, especially as regards the view of ‘temporal retribution’, its relationship to language of prophecy found throughout the Bible, and the idea of God and God’s dealings with history within it? pages 87-92 Write 3-4 sentences. Use specific examples. Below is the content of pages 87-92. “MY GŌ’ĒL LIVES”
During the debate and the maturation that is taking place in Job, there are moments of uncertainty and almost of despair. He says sadly:

Where then is my hope?
Who can see any happiness for me?
Unless they come down to Sheol with me,
all of us sinking into the dust together [17:15–16].
But this is far from being his final word on the subject. The passages I cited from chapters 9 and 16 were preparing the way for another that shows greater forcefulness and determination, and helps us understand what Job has in mind. But, once again, the act of confidence is preceded by a bitter expression of pain and protest. The latter begins (as in 16:2–5) with a new refusal to accept the arguments of his friends:

How much longer are you going to torment me
and crush me by your speeches?
You have insulted me ten times already:
have you no shame at maltreating me?
Even if I had gone astray,
my error would still be my own affair [19:2–4].
Once again, however, his greater complaint is against God; to God he attributes all his trouble and confusion.8 He feels harassed by the God in whom he believes:

I tell you that God has wronged me
and enveloped me in his net.
If I protest against such violence, I am not heard;
if I appeal against it, judgement is never given.
He has built an impassable wall across my path
and covered my way with darkness.
He has deprived me of my glory
and taken the crown from my head.
He assails me from all directions to make me vanish;
he uproots my hope as he might a tree.
Inflamed with anger against me,
he regards me as his foe.
His troops have come in force,
directing their line of advance towards me,
they are now encamped around my tent. . . .
My flesh is rotting under my skin,
my bones are sticking out like teeth [19:6–12, 20].
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All this causes him to ask for mercy on his suffering and for an end to persecution by God and his friends:

Pity me, pity me, my friends,
since I have been struck by the hand of God.
Must you persecute me just as God does,
and give my body no peace? [19:21–22].
Yet Job does not cease to hope in God, although this very confidence is one more element in the heartbreak he is experiencing. Here, as in chapters 9 and 16, in a paroxysm of suffering and demand for justice, he appeals for an arbiter, a mediator, and trusts that he will really find one. This time, however, he delves more deeply into the identity of the person in whom he places his hope.

In this passage, Job makes an act of faith that seems to lack any human basis, and proclaims his deepest conviction:

I know that I have a living Avenger (Gō’ēl)
and that at the end he will rise up above the dust.
After they pull my flesh from me,
and I am without my flesh, I shall see God;
I myself shall see him, and not as a stranger,
my own eyes will see him.
My heart is bursting within my breast [19:25–27].9
This is a famous and much-studied passage that has come down to us in a form that makes the reading difficult and therefore susceptible of substantially different translations.10 In the beginning, after issuing a rhetorical denial that any arbiter was possible in his suit against God, Job had nonetheless called for the presence of such an arbiter (9:33–35). He then, as it were, sketched the silhouette of a mediator (16:18–22, cited above). In the passage now before us he calls this person his gō’ēl, his defender or avenger. The word gō’ēl came out of the Jewish people’s experience of solidarity and had the family for its initial setting; subsequently it found a place in the sphere of the covenant and became a term that emphasized a particular aspect of God’s justice. The presence of the theme in the Book of Job is one more example of the link between this work and the traditional faith of Israel.

The verb ga’al means to liberate, ransom, redeem. It signifies concretely the obligation the nearest relative has of helping a family member who is in danger of losing his possessions or his freedom or his life.11 This rescuer is called a gō’ēl, an “avenger of blood” (2 Sam. 14:11). The application of the name to Yahweh implies that as a result of the covenant God has become part of the family of the people. God is thus the nearest relative, the one who takes responsibility for the people, the one who rescues them and avenges them if necessary. This notion of God is to be seen especially in Second Isaiah.12 The

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word gō’ēl thus acquires a religious meaning: God is the defender of all those who suffer injustice. For this reason, Proverbs says:

Do not remove an ancient landmark
or enter the fields of the fatherless;
for their Redeemer is strong;
he will plead their cause against you [23:10–11].
To whom is Job appealing? The subject is much debated, and rightly so, for the passage is one of the high points of the book and crucial for its interpretation. Is Job referring to God or to some third person? In my view, he is referring to God and not to an intermediary distinct from God. Job’s cry expresses an anguished but sure hope that comes to him from a profound insight—namely, that God is not to be pigeonholed in the theological categories of his friends. It might almost be said that Job, as it were, splits God in two and produces a God who is judge and a God who will defend him at that supreme moment; a God whom he experiences as almost an enemy but whom he knows at the same time to be truly a friend.13 He has just now accused God of persecuting him, but at the same time he knows that God is just and does not want human beings to suffer. These are two sides of the one God. This painful, dialectical approach to God is one of the most profound messages of the Book of Job.

At an earlier point, but in a less trenchant way, Job had already appealed to God against God:

If only you would keep me safe in the abyss
and shelter me there till your anger is past,
and you appoint a place for reconciliation with me!
[14:13].14
God could protect Job against God and God’s anger by hiding him in Sheol, which is a kind of nonworld within the world.

A similar splitting of God is seen in a passage of an author who had a keen awareness of human suffering and is representative in so many ways of the suffering peoples of Latin America. That is one reason we have already met him in these pages; I am referring to César Vallejo, whose witness has helped me to understand the Book of Job and relate it more fully to my own experience. Shortly before his death, Vallejo dictated these dramatic and trust-filled lines to his wife Georgette: "Whatever be the cause I must defend before God after death, I myself have a defender: God."15 In the language of the Bible, he had a gō’ēl. This was a God whose fleeting presence he had felt at certain moments in his life; a God who had slipped by him clad in the rags of a lottery-ticket seller and whom he therefore once described as a "bohemian God."16 At this final moment, in a decisive hour of his life, he sees this God at his side as he faces the judgment that his life has merited from the same God.

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PART 3: The Language of Contemplation: CHAPTER 9: The Mysterious Meeting of Two Freedoms. The seeming lack of logic in this way of looking at God is simply a sign that any approach to the mystery of God must be complex.17 Job acknowledges that God passes judgment on human behavior, but he also detects that God’s mercy is greater than God’s justice or, more accurately, that God’s justice is to be understood only in the context of prior and gratuitous love. “I have a living gō’ēl,” who will act in behalf of those he loves. Job is sure of this despite appearances18 and despite the theological artillery of his friends. The experience of near death has brought him to a clear vision of God as the source of life. The God who (“at the end”) will not allow him to be destroyed in the world of injustice and loneliness is a living God. God’s will that human beings should live is stronger than anything else and represents God’s final word.

Job’s hope will be confirmed by the vision of God: “I myself shall see him.“19 Not as an enemy or even a stranger20 but as a friend, someone close to him. Job reaffirms his conviction that he will see God with “his own eyes.” This hope causes his heart (literally, his kidney) to burst—that is, it makes him happy in the midst of his trials.

Job is aware of the difficult stretch ahead of him. But his confidence grows that his petition will be heard and that he will be given a meeting with God. He is increasingly sure, moreover, that the outcome will be favorable to him. Therefore he says almost with enthusiasm:

I should set out my case to him,
advancing any number of grievances.
Then I could learn his defence, every word of it,
taking note of everything he said to me.
Would he put all his strength into this debate with me?
No, he would have only to give his attention to me,
to recognize his opponent as upright
and so I should win my case for ever [23:4–7].
Job sees himself already victorious in his struggle with God because he is confident of the reception that he will receive. Perhaps he will go away limping, like Jacob after his contest with God, but—again like Jacob—he believes that he will be declared the winner if he grapples with God in order to receive God’s blessing and that he will therefore be able to say in the end: “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved” (Gen. 32:30).

We have witnessed a gradual increase in Job’s faith and hope. From a nebulous request for the presence of an arbiter he has advanced to the need of a witness and thence finally to an expression of confidence in a liberator who will come to rescue him. Each affirmation of hope is immediately preceded by a renewed expression of angry complaint and protest. The spiritual struggle with himself, with his friends, and, above all, with God brings him to a conviction that for the time being amounts to no more than a cry of hope: that he will see, and with his own eyes, his liberator, his gō’ēl, and be able to look upon him as a friend.

1. Nor is it foreign to the lives of the great saints. Here is an example that may surprise some readers. In this passage written shortly before her death, Thérèse of Lisieux speaks of the deep night, “the night of nothingness,” through which she has passed: “Dear Mother, I’ve tried to give you some picture of the darkness in which my soul is blindfolded; only of course it does no more justice to the truth than an artist’s first sketch does to his model. But how can I go on writing about it without running the risk of talking blasphemously? As it is, I’m terrified of having said too much” (Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux [New York: Kenedy, 1958], p. 256).

2. See G. von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), p. 217: “No one in Israel had ever depicted the action of God towards men in this way before. Those who prayed the prayers of lamentation were not exactly prudish when they reproached God for his severity. But here is a new tone which has never been sounded before.”

3. Numerous studies have called attention to the juridical language that the author often uses in presenting Job’s debate with God (see, e.g., 9:32 and 13:3).

4. [Verse #35 is here translated from the author’s Spanish text.—TR.]

5. It is always a profound experience to approach God and tell him how difficult it is to speak to him:

How difficult it is, my Father, to write from the
viewpoint of the winds,
so ready am I to curse, so raucous-voiced for song.
How can I speak of the love, of the gentle hills of
your kingdom,
if I dwell like a cat on a stake surrounded by the waters?
—Antonio Cisneros, “Oración,”
in his El libro de Dios y de los húngaros
(Lima: Libre–1 Editores, 1978).
6. [Verses 20–21 are here translated from the author’s Spanish text. The translation is that of the Tanak as well.—TR.]

7. M. Díaz Mateos, El Dios que libera (Lima: CEP, 1985), pp. 38–39.

8. Vallejo voices the same complaint about God. Amid his loneliness, torn between envy and spite, he exclaims:

God of mine, I am weeping for the life that I live;
I am sorry to have stolen your bread;
but this wretched, thinking piece of clay
is not a crust formed in your side:
you have no Marys that abandon you.
—“The Eternal Dice” (“Dados Eternos”),
in Neruda and Vallejo
(chap. 2, n. 2, above), p. 205.
9. [This entire passage is translated from the author’s Spanish text.—TR.]

10. See the state of the discussion in Lévêque, Job et son Dieu (chap. 1, n. 4, above), 2:467–97.

11. See Lev. 25:47–49: “If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you, or to a member of the stranger’s family, then after he is sold he may be redeemed; one of his brothers may redeem him, or his uncle, or his cousin may redeem him, or a near kinsman belonging to his family may redeem him.” Num. 35:18–19: “Or if he struck him down with a weapon of wood in the hand, by which a man may die, and he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death. The avenger of blood (gō’ēl) shall himself put the murderer to death; when he meets him, he shall put him to death.” See the remarks of M. Díaz Mateos, El Dios, pp. 38–41.

12. “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: ‘For your sake I will send to Babylon and break down all the bars, and the shouting of the Chaldeans will be turned to lamentations’” (Isa. 43:14; see also 41:14; 44:24; 52:3–9; etc.).

13. See the comparable remarks of G. von Rad, Old Testament Theology (New York: Harper & Row, 1962–65, 2 vols.), 1:415–16. J. Pixley (El libro [chap. 4, n. 10, above], p. 105), on the other hand, thinks that the context excludes any reference to God in this passage and that Job is speaking of some undefined “mediator.” Ernst Bloch, in his Atheism in Christianity: The Religion of the Exodus and the Kingdom (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), writes with complete confidence: “The friend Job seeks, the relative, the Avenger, cannot possibly be that same Yahweh against whom he invokes the Avenger” (p. 115). The whole direction of Bloch’s interpretation of the Book of Job prevents him from accepting the identity of the gō’ēl and God: in his view, “Job makes his exodus from Yahweh” and turns to a secular world that is without God (p. 110). There is indeed something resembling an “exodus” in Job; it is not, however, a departure from God, but on the contrary a movement toward a fuller encounter with God. What Job leaves behind is the world of temporal retribution in which divine justice was imprisoned and rigidified; what he seeks is the universe of gratuitousness (see below, chap. 10).

14. [This passage is here translated from the author’s Spanish text.—TR.]

15. Vallejo, Obra poética completa (Lima: Mosca Azul, 1974), p. 423.

16. “La de a mil,” ibid., p. 67.

17. With regard to the identity of the gō’ēl, Gordis writes: “Actually, the problem arises only because of the tendency to apply Western categories of logic to the Oriental spirit. The sharp delimitation of personality is foreign to biblical thought. In all these passages, Job is affirming his faith that behind the God of violence, so tragically manifest in the world, stands the God of righteousness and love—and they are not two but one! Thus, Job’s attack upon conventional religion is actually the expression of deepest trust. Hence Job is eminently worthy of God’s final encomium pronounced upon him [i.e., 42:10]” (The Book of Job [chap. 1, n. 8, above], p. 527). Despite Habel’s reservations about this position (Introduction, n. 19, above), pp. 305–6, I think that on this point Gordis is correct.

18. “I will flee from You to Yourself,” wrote the medieval Spanish-Jewish poet, Solomon ibn Gabirol (cited in Gordis, The Book of Job, p. 527).

19. I join the majority of modern commentators in thinking that this passage provides no solid basis for an affirmation of the resurrection in Job; see Lévêque, Job et son Dieu, 2:479–89.

20. Alonso Schökel (chap. 1, n. 1, above), p. 284, points out how important “the use of the words sar and zar, enemy and stranger,” is in this chapter.

CHAPTER 9: The Mysterious Meeting of Two Freedoms
“CHAPTER 9: The Mysterious Meeting of Two Freedoms”
[Introduction]

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Job’s hope is not in vain: his desire to see God and speak to God is fulfilled. Its fulfillment comes in unexpected ways, but it enables him to make notable progress on the way that leads to correct talk about God. This must take as its starting point a recognition of God’s plan and of the fact that because of it the entire work of creation bears the trademark of gratuitousness. It is under that aspect that Yahweh is revealed to Job. Yahweh does not crush Job with divine power but speaks to him of Yahweh’s creative freedom and tells him of the respect Yahweh has for human freedom. Job’s call for justice is legitimate, and Yahweh is committed to justice. But if justice is to be understood in its full meaning and scope, it must be set in the context of God’s overall plan for human history, for it is there that God grants self-revelation. God now waits for an answer from Job, of whose integrity God has been so proud.

AT THE TURNING POINT OF THE WORLD The response given by the faith of the people was a first approach to an answer. The spiritual struggle Job has undergone has confirmed what is best in that response, and it has enabled him to be critical of the easy, unquestioning acceptance the popular outlook may adopt. Job’s confrontation with God, which is presented to us in the Book of Job with a boldness unmatched elsewhere in the Bible, contributes to our fund of mystical language about God. The confrontation will end in a full acknowledgment of the greatness and freedom of God. Spiritual struggle thus proves to be a means by which Job comes to understand more fully and deeply the language of popular faith (Job, chaps. 1 and 2) with its riches and ambiguities, and is helped to move on to contemplation of the mystery of God (see chap. 42).

Will no one give me a hearing?
This is my signature!1 Now let Shaddai reply!
When my adversary has drafted his writ against me
I shall wear it on my shoulder,
and bind it round my head like a royal turban.
I shall give him an account of my every step
and go as boldly as a prince to meet him [31:35–37].
Job persists in regarding the Almighty as an adversary. He wants the case to be set forth clearly; therefore he expects the arguments against him to be written down so that everyone can read them. Job also betrays a feeling of anticipated victory (“I shall … go as boldly as a prince to meet him”). Above all, he issues a clear challenge: let God speak, the God who has plunged him into poverty and suffering. When Job is done speaking, the narrator says laconically: “End of the words of Job” (31:40). And his statement is correct: Job will not speak again except to say that henceforth he will acknowledge the gratuitousness of God’s love and will know how to enter fully into it.

God then speaks (after the interlude of Elihu’s speeches, which we have already seen). There is no one else there but Job. He will not again listen to the satan, the three friends, and Elihu; their scolding and clever remarks have faded away. Only Job and his God remain. Here is the encounter Job has so feared but also so awaited. In the person of Job, alone here before God, are present all the innocent of this world who suffer unjustly and ask “why?” of the God in whom they believe.

God speaks, but in an unpredictable way—making no reference to concrete problems and therefore not responding to the distress and questions of Job.2 This does not seem correct. What God says is disconcerting to the reader, but Job seems to understand it (see 40:3–4, and 42:1–6). Our aim is to share this understanding.

God answers Job—because it is indeed a matter of God’s responding to Job’s insistent plea—“from the heart of the tempest.” This is a classic image used in the Bible to highlight an important self-manifestation of God. The phrase is used twice here (38:1; 40:6), following the same pattern as at other key points in the Book of Job. Furthermore, on both occasions—that is, at the beginning of God’s two speeches—the author calls God “Yahweh”; this is the classical name of the God of the covenant and has not been used since the prologue.

Job has fearfully anticipated the way in which God would speak to him: “He will crush me in the tempest and wound me over and over without cause” (9:17).3 This fear of God’s self-manifestation is a common theme in the Bible (see Exod. 20:18-20). But the fear proves mistaken. God does not crush the addressee, but returns to the theme of God’s own greatness. Job had referred to this several times (adding complaints, it is true), and Elihu had made it the focus of the second part of his speech. On the lips of God, however, the subject takes on a special emphasis and has a different purpose. The greatness of God