Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Book of Job, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Suffering and Divine Justice
The Mystery of God
Human Wisdom vs. Divine Wisdom
Faith in Suffering
Summary
Analysis
Job continues his complaint—he hates his life. He wants to ask God why God finds it good to oppress him, seemingly siding with the wicked. Does he see the way human beings do? Is that why God searches for Job’s sin, even though he knows Job is innocent and helpless? God created Job; will he now return Job to dust? He gave Job life and preserved him. Yet now he hunts Job like a lion and oppresses him. Why did he bother letting Job see the light of day? Job asks God to leave him alone, so that he can find a little comfort before he goes into the grave forever.
Here Job’s complaint fastens onto the idea that it’s unjust for God, the creator, to create him if all he’s going to do is destroy Job. In other words, he’s arguing with God on the basis of what he understands to be God’s nature as creator of human beings. This is arguably an expression of faith in the midst of suffering—after all, Job bothers to question God instead of simply turning his back on him. His questioning suggests that, on some level, he maintains faith in God, even if he’s dismayed by God’s ways.
Themes
