What do you think of the Book of Job?

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It think it’s OK. I find reading other books (something from the Pentateuch, for example) more “enjoyable”, but it’s packed with theological significance.
 
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Seagull said:
I’d also say not to listen to your friends or wife.

Not to listen to surrounding people, whom you once helped.
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This is a big part of the book. I take this to mean that we should take advice from our friends and family with a grain of salt.It is so easy to get bad advice these days too. People who think they know “the truth.” Even on here. I’ve acted like the know all Pharisee too, giving people 3rd rate or even wrong advice.
The friends of Job suggest that his suffering is deserved. That he must have done something to warrant it. Proving they are simple minded. As if God metes out justice according to our good or “bad” works. The Book of Job challenges us to accept the mystery of suffering and that there are no pat answers. God is in control and we need to trust He is doing a good job, despite our puny minds asking “why, why why?”.
 
I particularly like the New Jerusalem translation of the book of Job (you can see Tolkien’s fingerprints on the language 😍
 
People in the OT believed suffering was punishment for sin. The Book of Job makes it clear that is not always the case, that God sometimes allows suffering of the Just for the purpose of spiritual growth. Job came out better from the experience.
 
Pray for spiritual fortitude to overcome that. Job never lost trust in God.
 
I just looked up a few of my favorite Job quotes - and they do carry some weight .

“ But now - they that are younger than I - have me in derision -
whose fathers I would have disdained - to have set with the dogs of my flock “

“ Hell is naked before Him “

“ Have pity on me ! Have pity on my, O ye my friends !
For the hand of God hath touched me “

“ miserable comforters are ye all “

“ Will ye speak wickedly for God ? “

“ Man that is born of woman - is of few days - and full of trouble “
 
I can see Job’s face - saying that too -
Looking them down at their feet - then up to their hypocrite eyes -
 
Dan_Defender said:
Job came out better from the experience.
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I would disagree with that. Sure he had more sheep, camels, oxen, and donkeys than before; but he lost 10 children. Getting 10 new children would not replace that loss.
 
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I had a crisis in 2014 where my life fell apart and at that time Job was a source of inspiration and hope for me.
 
TheOldColonel said:
What I find most striking about the book is that when Job asks God the reason for his sufferings, God gives no answer. Indeed, the theological point is made quite clear that God is not accountable to humanity.
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When folks talk about Job, I always point them to my favorite book that deals with this book of the Bible: Peter Kreeft’s Three Philosophies of Life.

In order to understand the Book of Job, we must recall that, in the time of the setting of the story, people didn’t know that there was eternal reward and eternal punishment. Rather, they thought that good people were rewarded for their virtue here on earth (and wicked people were punished here on earth and also, punished with death).

That’s why Job’s friends – and even his wife – advised him to admit that, deep down (and unexpectedly!), he was evil. “Just admit it and take your punishment like a man!” was the refrain.

But, Job knew that he hadn’t committed evil, and so he asks God, “why?”. Why this punishment for evil that had not been committed?

I think God’s answer is an actual answer: “you weren’t here when I created the universe; you can’t possibly understand the answer.” I don’t think that it’s about God not being accountable to humanity, so much as it is that He’s inscrutable.

And, since Job stuck to his guns (and to his innocence!), he was rewarded in the way that people of that time would expect to be rewarded – not with eternal life, but with good things in this world (twice as much as he’d previously had!).
 
Mike_from_NJ said:
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Dan_Defender:
Job came out better from the experience.
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I would disagree with that. Sure he had more sheep, camels, oxen, and donkeys than before; but he lost 10 children. Getting 10 new children would not replace that loss.
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The restitution that Job receives is precisely what the Mosaic covenant would prescribe for someone who inflicted damage upon another – twice the value of goods lost. Look at it in context: the story is saying that God made Job whole for the financial loss he experienced. It’s not trying to suggest that “ten new children make up for ten dead children.”
 
We apparently have divergent perspectives on the work in a number of places.
 
It actually kind of does say that the new children made up for the old children. That passage is immediately after the counting of his flock and before describing what a good long life Job had when it was all said and done.
12The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13And he also had seven sons and three daughters. 14The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. 15Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.

16After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17And so Job died, an old man and full of years.
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Personally I think he should have restored Job’s children as an apology for having been tempted by Satan to kill them.
 
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