Suffering and Divine Justice
The Bible’s Book of Job explores the question of why good people sometimes endure senseless suffering—particularly, why God seems to allow such suffering. The story centers on Job, a thriving patriarch whose prosperity seems to be the reward for his upstanding behavior. So when God permits Satan to inflict disease and devastating losses on Job, it seems, from a human perspective, that divine justice has somehow gone awry. As he laments his circumstances, Job…
read analysis of Suffering and Divine Justice
The Mystery of God
During his suffering, Job feels that God is both too distant to reach and much too close for comfort. His sufferings make him feel like God is relentlessly oppressing him—looming so close that Job begs God to look away from him long enough to let Job breathe. And yet, at the same time, God seems to “hide his face” from Job (to feel totally absent) and to elude Job’s searching, preventing Job from pleading his…
read analysis of The Mystery of God
Human Wisdom vs. Divine Wisdom
When three of Job’s friends (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) hear of Job’s suffering, they come to comfort him. But when Job complains that God has punished him for no reason, Job’s friends take turns arguing with this point. They argue that God causes people to suffer because of their sins and that he rewards the righteous; to assert otherwise, they contend, is to accuse God of being unjust and so…
read analysis of Human Wisdom vs. Divine Wisdom
Faith in Suffering
When Job hears the news that he’s lost his children and all his possessions, he immediately responds by tearing his robe and shaving his head (traditional signs of mourning in the ancient Near East). He then falls to the ground and worships God, saying, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” Even after Job himself is afflicted with terrible sores, he continues to “maintain his…
read analysis of Faith in Suffering
