I approached the book of Job with the belief that I knew already the events that took place and that Job would stay devoted to God throughout. I was surprised to learn how he ends up cursing his life and blaming God for his misery. However, I was not surprised because this is an inappropriate reaction to his situation. On the contrary, one would find this to be the expected response to the suffering that a man as good and devout as Job is, to have. I was surprised at the fact that the bible would have a book so heavily devoted to questioning God in and of itself. Here we have Job, who seems to have become a romantic nihilist, believing that the universe is working against him, which, in reality, it is. He has become so downtroddn and despondent that he is BEGGING God for death, asking for God to crush him and put him out of his misery. Of course, God is opposed to this, because God does not want to kill one of his most loyal and devout worshippers. In this way God shows us how inhuman he can be, lacking any empathy towards Job and valuing Job only based on Job being alive. It is also interesting, that during this entire ordeal, Job never once questions the existence of God. Perhaps the idea that God does not exist is still to radical for even the most tortured of souls at the time of this writing. Or maybe there is a certain message here, about the existence of God. Perhaps this story is trying to say that its fine to be angry with God, but to deny his existence is impossible. One other interesting aspect is how women are viewed in this text, specifically with respect to Job’s wife. Even when Job loses everything, he still has his wife, who he is supposed to love, and yet he laments as if he was left with nothing and no one. He even insults his wife, when she tells him, rightly so, that God has forsaken him, and Job treats her like a moron.
Mark’s thoughts on Job
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