I think it is unusually instructive that there are two distinct accounts of the Creation at the beginning of Genesis. (Gen. 1:1-2:3; 2:3-24). Why two? Is this just clumsy editing? A mistake? No. The likely answer, as Biblical scholars have pointed out, is that each account is designed to bring out a separate aspect of God as Creator. The first account emphasizes that he is the maker of the entire natural order – stars, sun, planets, the environment and creatures of the earth, in all their magnificence, strangeness and wonder. Human life is of course part of the natural order, but utterly dwarfed in the immensity of it: the natural world seems in many ways simply too vast, too uncaring and too alien for human concerns to matter much in it. The second aspect reveals God as the maker of the moral order – laying down rules for the direction of human beings, concerned with human goodness and happiness, establishing justice and peace.
The question is how these two faces or aspects of God fit together. Do human concerns matter from God’s perspective, or do they not? Depending on which image of the Creator we consider, we may be tempted to answer Yes or No.
For much of the Old Testament, these two planes do not intersect. Some of the OT (say, the so-called Wisdom literature) emphasizes the natural order, and correspondingly treats human concerns as rather unimportant. Other parts (say, the prophetic books) focus on the moral or human order rather than the natural order: they are preoccupied with God’s workings in history, not in nature.
The greatness of the Book of Job is that the inherent tension between the two Genesis images is finally brought to the surface and discussed with excruciating lucidity and honesty. Job complains that his unmerited sufferings violate the moral order; God (may) answer by pointing to His utter transcendence as the maker of the stupefyingly grand and immense non-human universe.
As I see it, the Hebrew Bible, beginning with the creation accounts in Genesis, presents us with two distinct images of God: as the maker of the physical universe, from the galaxies to the smallest sub-atomic particle; and as the author of humanity and of the laws by which it should be regulated. When we regard the first aspect of God, it can become problematic to see why humanity and its concerns should count for anything with Him: “What is man, that Thou dost make so much of him, and that thou dost set Thy mind upon him?” (Job 7:17). In this vein, Pascal can say: “The vastnesses of infinite space make me afraid.” It seems absurd to judge the actions of such a God by merely human standards of right and wrong, good and evil.
But this is not so when we consider God’s involvement in human affairs and his interest in them. In the Hebrew Bible, God is often astonishingly close to humanity. So He appears to Abraham as he is sitting in the midday heat in front of his tent, permits Abraham to wash His feet, and accepts a meal from him (Gen. 18:1-8). God is by turns loving, angry, jealous, forgiving, remote, intimate, hurt, pleased.
How do the two faces of God fit together? In particular, can we humans expect or even demand that God be just? Or is He beyond justice or injustice, good or evil, as we understand those things? As I see it, this question is broached in the Hebrew Bible by the Book of Job.
Job suffers hideously at God’s hands. Is Job therefore the victim of a savage injustice? Throughout the book (until, perhaps, his last words), Job insists that his suffering cannot be attributed to his own sinfulness or wrongdoing (RSV trans.):
And Job again took up his discourse, and said:
“As God lives, who has taken away my right,
and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter;
as long as breath is in me,
and the spirit of God is in my nostrils,
my lips will not speak falsehood,
and my tongue will not utter deceit.
Far be it from me to say that you are right;
Till I die I will not put away my integrity.
I hold fast my righteousness, and will not let it go;
My heart does not reproach me for any of my days.
(Job 22:1-6). Job insists that the sole author of his misery is God:
“Who among all these does not know
That the hand of the LORD has done this?
In his hand is the life of every living thing
And the breath of all mankind.”
(Job 12:9-10). Unaccountably, God has deserted Job:
“Oh, that I were as in the months of old,
as in the days when God watched over me;
when His lamp shone upon my head.
and by his light I walked through darkness,
as I was in my autumn days,
when the friendship of God was upon my tent;
when the Almighty was yet with me.”
(Job 29:1-5). Indeed, if God has any concern at all with Job, it seems only to be to torment and oppress him. Job actually prays for God’s indifference as relief:
“Therefore I will not restrain my mouth,
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. . . .
I loathe my life; I would not live for ever.
Let me alone, for my days are a breath.
What is man, that Thou does make so much of him,
And that Thou dost set Thy mind upon him,
Dost visit him every morning,
And test him every moment?
How long wilt Thou not look away from me,
Not let me alone till I swallow my spittle?
If I sin, what do I do to Thee, Thou watcher of men?
Why hast Thou made me Thy mark?”
(Job 7:11, 16-20). The boldness of Job’s questioning at this point is breathtaking: he is asking why a God before whom he is so insignificant should want to torment him. You might think here of the lines in King Lear: “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods./They kill us for their sport.” (King Lear, Act IV, scene i).
Job knows that it is useless for him to protest: his innocence is unavailing in the face of God’s sheer, overwhelming power:
“Let me have silence, and I will speak,
And let come on me what may.
I will take my flesh in my teeth,
And put my life in my hand.
Behold, he will slay me; I have no hope;
Yet I will defend my ways to His face.”
(Job 13:13-15). God will answer Job in the end, and it is fascinating that Job himself seems to foresee clearly what God’s answer will be. Job says:
“But how can a man be just before God?
If one wished to contend with Him,
One could not answer Him once in a thousand times. . . .
[He] who made the Bear and Orion,
The Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
Who does great things beyond understanding,
And marvelous things without number,
Lo, He passes by me, and I see Him not;
He moves on, but I do not perceive Him.
Behold, He snatches away; who can hinder Him?
Who will say to Him: ‘What doest Thou? . . . .’
If it is a contest of strength, behold Him!
If it is a matter of justice, who can summon Him?
Though I am innocent, my own mouth would condemn me;
Though I am blameless; I regard not myself,
I loathe my life.
It is all one; therefore I say,
He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.”
(Job 9:2-3, 9-12, 19-22). Job knows full well that if it is “a contest of strength” with God, he must lose; and even if it is “a matter of justice,” he cannot summon God to give an answer.
Yet, in due course, God does answer Job. God speaks “out of the whirlwind,” saying “‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?’” (Job 38:1-2). As I say, I think Job has anticipated God’s answer. In any case, Job bows before it, as he must: ‘“I know that Thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of Thine can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2).
But what is the true meaning of Job’s submission? There are three possibilities, I think. 1) He merely withdraws his suit against God, and falls silent. 2) He submits, but continues to believe in his innocence – thus leaving the question of God’s justice unresolved. Or 3) he is finally brought around to acknowledging his own sinfulness, thus demonstrating that the suffering God has inflicted on him is merited. Which is it?
Most interpreters seem to think it is the third. Job’s final words (in the RSV) are:
“I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear,
But now my eye sees Thee;
Therefore I despise myself,
And repent in dust and ashes.”
(Job 42: 8-9). This would seem to favor the third, traditional interpretation; but thorny questions remain. For one thing, the Hebrew text is ambiguous: the word translated here as “repent” usually means “recant” or “despise.” Moreover, that word, unexpectedly, has no object in this passage. So Job might be saying “I recant . . . “ (of what?) or “I despise . . .” (what?). Further, it appears that the last line is also ambiguous in Hebrew: one scriptural commentary goes so far as to suggest that the sense of it may be: “I repent of my repentance”. Thus, based simply on the original language, we cannot conclusively affirm any of the three interpretations.
What come next, however, is truly extraordinary. This is what God says to Job’s “comforter” (or rather, accuser) Eliphaz: “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends: for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7) (my emphasis). In other words, God seems to be saying that His would-be apologists have spoken of Him falsely, and that His accuser, Job, has spoken of Him truly.
Consider what Eliphaz had said to Job:
“Think now, who that was innocent ever perished?
Or where were the upright cut off? . . .
‘Can mortal man be righteous before God?
Can a man be pure before his Maker?
Even in His servants he puts no trust,
And His angels he charges with error;
How much more those who dwell in houses of clay,
Whose foundations lie in the dust,
Who are crushed before the moth.’”
(Job 4:7-8; 17-19). This understanding of Him, God says, is false.
How can this be? Is the Hebrew Bible telling us, in effect, that Job’s complaint is unanswered, and that God may, indeed, not be just in His dealings with mankind – at least with those who, like Job, are innocent?
I am not sure. But I have two observations. First, if Job has been innocent and God has indeed been unjust to him, then it is an extraordinary act of justice for God to say so. God has just reminded Job, and us, of His utter sovereignty and transcendence. He owes us nothing – certainly not an answer to our complaints about the injustice of our lives. But He condescends to give us an answer – and the answer is that Job is right! In his answer to Eliphaz – if not to Job – God at least begins to establish that He is just.
Second and more important, consider how like Job Jesus is. There are many passages in the Book of Job that bear out an astonishing resemblance. Here is one:
“I am a laughingstock to my friends;
I, who called upon God and He answered me;
A just and blameless man, am a laughingstock.”
(Job 12:4). Here is another:
“Men have gaped at me with their mouth;
They have struck me insolently upon the cheek,
They mass themselves together against me . . .
God gives me up to the ungodly,
And casts me into the hands of the wicked . . .
He slashes open my kidneys, and does not spare;
He pours out my gall on the ground.”
(Job 16:10- 11, 13). So, I would say, the suffering and death of Jesus are God’s true answer to Job. Job is right, at least to this extent — God would be unjust, were it not for Jesus.
In Jesus, the two apparently conflicting images of God in Genesis are finally reconciled. Consider the great passage in John 6:19-21. The disciples see Jesus walking on then sea, three or four miles out on the Lake of Galilee, during a storm. Here is God as the maker and ruler of nature, Who can command the wind and sea. And the disciples are awestruck, terrified. Then Jesus says to them: “It is I; do not be afraid.” “It is I.” These are also the words God uses in the Hebrew Bible to identify Himself: “I am that I am” (Ex. 3:14). Jesus as God is like no other, merely created, thing; He is incomprehensibly strange, transcendent, far above the natural order that He has brought into being. But at the same time, in saying “It is I,” Jesus is also reassuring His friends and followers, emphasizing His familiarity to them: “It is I, Jesus, Whom you know – Your master and friend.” So that, when they heard His words, the disciples (John says) “were glad to take him into the boat.”
(Signed, Johannes Climacus)
