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
After those seven days have passed, Job finally speaks—he curses the day he was born. He laments that he didn’t die at birth, and that he wasn’t stillborn. If he had been, he would now be at rest in the grave, along with all others, both small and great, who have died. Job wonders why the miserable, who long for death, are nevertheless granted life. His sighing is like bread, and his groanings are like water. He has no peace.
From the prologue’s prose narrative, the book now moves into poetry, which will take up the whole central section. The poetry opens with Job’s anguished outburst as he stops silently enduring his suffering, doing what he’d earlier refused to do—resist God. He particularly questions the justice of being allowed to live when life is nothing but constant suffering (signified by the idea that he eats and drinks suffering).
Themes
