The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job to Post-Biblical, Transcendental Faith PDF Free Download
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INQUIRY: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines
DOI: 10.5840/inquiryct20254718
Online First: April 10, 2025
© Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines. This Open Access article
is distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND license.
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
to Post-Biblical, Transcendental Faith
HANNAH KEHAT
Givat Washington College and Seminar HaKibbutzim College
Abstract: This paper critically examines the subversive message in the
book of Job against the biblical theology according to which God rewards
good people and punishes bad ones. He challenges the biblical ethos of
‘retributive justice’ found in wisdom literature and presents the tran-
scendental view in which God is not subject to human manipulation, as
the ideal of faith. The book of Job defies wisdom books such as Ecclesi-
astes, Proverbs, and Psalms, which promote proper behavior through
divine reward. He also questions the construction of a social hierarchy
built on fear of punishment. Using psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s
stages of grief, the article analyzes Job’s spiritual journey from despair
to recovery, emphasizing the achievement of his transcendental faith.
The article examines different meanings of faith in the biblical tradition,
grief, recovery, reconciliation and forgiveness. It seeks to explain God’s
answer to Job and the mutual reconciliation between them despite the
disasters caused to Job.
Keywords: Job, critical thinking, theology, retribution theory, immanence,
transcendence, grief and restoration, Kubler-Ross
Introduction: Reading the Book of Job
from the Perspective of Critical Thinking
Since the second half of the twentieth century, philosophy has dealt
extensively with modes of thinking and its meaning. The postmodern
zeitgeist was accompanied by an approach of deconstruction and various
levels of cultural criticism. By the end of the century, critical thinking as
a philosophical movement was developing as the optimal way to educate
a worthy person.
Hannah Kehat
Richard Paul (1984, p. 5) one of the main proponents of this move-
ment, argues that critical thinking is the attempt to choose attitudes and
values intelligently, instead of automatically. Robert Ennis (1987) defines
critical thinking as a thoughtful and practical reflective activity that
focuses on deciding what to believe and what to do. It includes creative
actions such as formulating ideas, seeking alternative ways of seeing a
problem, asking questions, and proposing possible solutions and research
agendas wherein the thinker strives to analyze his arguments carefully,
looks for valid evidence, and reaches sound conclusions. The objectives
of teaching critical thinking are to develop people who are fair, objec-
tive, and committed to clarity and accuracy, and who can examine and
evaluate information, opinions, or ideas in an informed manner. A critical
thinker will be able to form an opinion or position independently, choose
between alternatives, and make rational decisions.
Paul (1982) distinguished between weak critical thinking, which fo-
cuses on critiquing the thinking of others, and strong critical thinking,
whereby the thinker learns to criticize himself and the basic assumptions of
his thought. Accordingly, the development of critical thinking is achieved
through repeated dialogue about attitudes and points of view, and through
consistently verifying information. Educating to critical thinking teaches
one to question what one learns, basic wisdom, and accepted norms, and
to examine on what basis a text or person advances claims. From what
point of view do they claim something? Why should these claims be
preferred over alternative or contradictory claims? Do I have all the most
reliable information? Why are they trying to convince me of one claim or
another? Educating to critical thinking aims to cultivate a graduate who
thinks autonomously and reflectively, and thus chooses what to believe,
as well as why, and what to do (Ennis, 2011).
Critical Thinking in Reading the Book of Job
Generally, in Biblical Studies, biblical criticism is employed as the primary
method of analysis, emphasizing the scientistic philological project of
documentary history. This approach developed from the beginning of the
nineteenth century and treats the text merely as a ‘source.’ However, as
Weiss (1987a, p. 29) writes, from the end of the nineteenth through the
twentieth centuries, biblical scholarship began to be influenced by literary
research, drawing on linguistic theory and disciplines including social,
humanities, and culture sciences. Weiss describes this as follows: “All the
teachings offered today from the pulpit in the halls of the humanities, the
daughter of their voice, resonates today in the tents of biblical research.”
This method resembles what is happening in the field of literary research
(ibid., pp. 33–34). As a result, contemporary biblical scholarship is heav-
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
ily influenced today by postmodern hermeneutics, as well as examining
sociological, epistemological, and theological aspects, etc.
The reading I present here employs the theoretical lens of deconstruc-
tion, as developed by Jacques Derrida (1967, 1992), which argues that
the text, any text, is never one-dimensional, as the metaphysical tradition
claims, but rather, contains loopholes, traces, and remnants of hidden
struggles. Such textual aspects demonstrate that behind the apparent fixed
meaning lie differences in basic assumptions, rejections, deviations, and
receptions (Gurevitz 1977, pp. 44–49). Biblical exegesis is now pursued
in this critical arena (Derrida, 1967, 1992).
This article interprets the book of Job according to five critical in-
sights. First, I emphasize that Job differs from all the other biblical books,
displaying a unique universalist discourse with no nationally specific
orientation to the People of Israel. Second, I demonstrate that its critical
theological perspective contradicts the doctrine of reward and punish-
ment central to the biblical ethos, which is particularly characteristic
of the wisdom literature. Third, its narrative displays a clear subversive
inclination to defy the construction of a social hierarchy oriented to
imparting superficial utilitarian beliefs that existed in religious tradi-
tions at the time of its composition. Fourth, I focus on Job’s mental
and spiritual processes as the essence of the book, instead of theological
questions about the doctrine of divine reward and punishment. Finally,
I analyze Job’s processes through the organizing structure of the stages
of grief developed by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. As such, my
analysis facilitates critical interpretation by deconstructing the existing
narrative’s ontological aspects. This touches on the idea of interpretation
according to the principle of charity (Principle of Charity) which assumes
a logical explanation for the words of the person being criticized and for
his behavior.
The Double Story and Its Double Meaning
The book of Job comprises a double plot consisting of a frame story
and a main story. The frame story serves as exposition of the main plot,
which consists of Job’s difficult and complex dialogues with his fellows,
as well as his speeches, along with those of Elihu and God. The frame
story describes Job as a particularly righteous and God-fearing man who
dwells in the land of Uz, is blessed with seven sons and three daughters
and possesses great wealth. His sons celebrate daily feasts at one of their
homes, inviting their three sisters to join them. “When a round of feast
days was over, Job would send word to them to sanctify themselves, and,
rising early in the morning, he would make burnt offerings, one for each
of them; for Job thought, ‘Perhaps my children have sinned and “blessed”
Hannah Kehat
(instead of writing blasphemed) God in their hearts. “This is what Job
always used to do” (1:5).
After introducing the book’s eponymous protagonist, the narrator
describes a scene in heaven which disappears from Job’s memory. When
the divine beings (angels of varying forms, ranks and functions), includ-
ing Satan (a title and function meaning “the Adversary” who opposes
humanity, not God), gather before God, He draws his attention to Job’s
great righteousness: “There is no one like him on earth, a blameless and
upright man who fears God and shuns evil!” (1:8). Satan responds that
Job’s righteousness is a result of his fortunate circumstances, but if all that
he has is harmed, his fear of God will desert him. God decides to test
Job’s faith and allows Satan to bring multiple disasters upon him, one by
one. At first, he is deprived of his property, his servants, even his children,
but when he persists in his faith and righteousness, God permits Satan
to afflict Job’s body with boils. The main narrative begins in chapter 3,
and consists of speeches by Job and his companions that extend almost to
the end of the book in an orderly structure of three rounds of dialogue.
A young figure named Elihu intervenes in the conversation and, finally,
God’s speech is revealed from within a storm.
Conventional readings that categorize the book of Job within the an-
cient Near Eastern genre of wisdom literature neglect critical aspects of
the text. Its speeches express different worldviews regarding the doctrine
of divine reward and punishment, the value of life, conceptions of good
and of evil, and a host of other theological topics that arise in the book’s
many extended discourses. At the same time, the frame story is treated
as a purely literary ornament.1
The claim of most scholars is that the purpose of the book of Job is
to challenge the ethos of wisdom literature, that the righteous receive a
good reward and the wicked are punished. The accepted opinion is that
the frame story comes to strengthen the basic premise that Job represents
the perfect man, righteous and God-fearing and his disaster came not
because of his wickedness but on the contrary, because of his righteous-
ness.2 This is because the role of the secondary plot, in the frame story,
to embroider the realistic and paradoxical background to the main plot,
which is the difficult and complex dialogues of Job with his friends, of
Job’s speeches, of Elijah’s speeches and of God’s words. The Gothic defi-
ance of the book is against the accepted view of the theory of retribution,
of ‘righteous and good to him, wicked and bad to him.’ Shlomo Becher
(1981, p. 355) writes that the presentation of the figure of God as a
player, in the words of the friends, is the idea of the book of Proverbs,
a reflection of the path of faith in the theory of retribution and justice.
Whereas in the words of Job, an incomprehensible god is reflected, a god
whose leadership contradicts the concept of wisdom literature expressed
in the book of Proverbs. Meir Weiss claims that the choice of the land
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
of “Uz” which is in ‘Edom,’ the land of wisdom, comes to emphasize
Job’s polemic against the concept of common wisdom. Indeed, Rambam
already emphasized in Guide for the Perplexed (ibid.). the meaning of
“Uz” as wisdom. This is also how Weiss (1987b, p. 344) interprets it.
However, I argue that this reading does not recognize the book’s full
educational and theological message. Instead, I suggest a holistic approach
that attends to continuity between the two plots and sees in the book “a
narrative of a journey.”3 The frame story serves not merely as an artificial
theatrical opening, but as theoretical background for the profound conver-
sations in the main plot. From this perspective, the book of Job instead
becomes a quest narrative of sorts that criticizes utilitarian believers with
whom Job is identified. It seeks the correct way to achieve intimacy with
God, and subverts the superficiality of the traditional, popular conception
of faith intended to guarantee the believer reward and wellbeing. The
book thus militates against a transactional or instrumentalist give-and-
take relationship with God.
In order to trace Job’s spiritual process as he emerges from the depths
of despair to rehabilitation, spiritual growth, and accomplishment of the
great faith in God that is revealed in him, I first examine how the figure
of Job is described in the double plot. Next, I discuss different meanings
and modes of faith in the biblical tradition. Finally, I describe processes
of mourning and rehabilitation, reconciliation, and appeasement. This
will serve to explicate God’s answer to Job from within the storm, and
the resulting mutual appeasement and acceptance despite, and perhaps
precisely because of, the demand that Job pass the unbearable test to
which he is subject.
Description of Job’s Character
In the opening of the frame story, the author undermines Job as a righ-
teous figure. The first thing that stands out is his fear of the grave sin
of cursing God. Job cares for the welfare of his sons and atones for their
sin lest they “bless God,” a euphemism for the fear that they have actu-
ally cursed Him (1:5). This also represents a test of Job’s fear of God. In
chapter 2, after Job suffers the calamities unleashed by Satan, his wife
suggests he break free from the bondage of reverence, telling him, “Bless
(blaspheme) God, and die!” (2:9). Job refuses to comply, despite all that
has happened to him. It is never clear why God mentions Job to Satan
in the first place, “opening his mouth to Satan,” tempting him to harass
Job, challenging him to prove his claim that Job is not truly righteous.
Yosefa Rahman ((1990, p. 340) suggests that God may be challenged to
justify the world’s existence through Job’s righteousness in order to refute
Satan’s claim that it has no real justification. For there really is no faithful
righteous person on the level of a believer who loves and clings to God
Hannah Kehat
without seeking selfish benefit. Indeed, Yeshayahu Leibovitz, like Tzu-
modi, was one of the first to point out that the book of Job is intended
to teach man about true fear of God. Based on the Rambam’s approach
in the Guide for the Perplexed (Maimonides, 2013), he presents the
similarity between the story of Job and the story of the binding of Isaac
and the process that both Abraham and Job go through from fear of God
not for its own sake to fearing God for its own sake. From a teleological
fear to a deontological fear (Leibovitz 1982, pp. 20–24). The question
remains, why is cursing God the emblem of religious deterioration? This
question will be answered later.
In examining the character of Job, Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik
calls him a crude religious personality:
The selfish and rude religious figure is represented by Job. The Bible describes
him as having a very limited personality, a law-abiding citizen, “fearing God and
shunning evil” (1:8). He did not act in evil, but neither did he show commit-
ment to God. His efforts were directed toward one limited goal: maintaining
his family’s status quo. ... Indeed, Job offered sacrifices to God, but this ritual
was not a natural expression of religious experience. ... It was actually a busi-
ness initiative, a pragmatic matter of quid pro quo. The offerings he made were
supposed to increase the security of his offspring. (Soloveitchik, 2004, 130)
Indeed, Soloveitchik demonstrates a critical reading that reflects the
implicit objective of the frame story, revealing its hidden agenda. This
careful reading reveals the intention of the book’s author to persuade us
that Satan’s contention is actually correct.
Job is a utilitarian subject, and his worship of God is likewise utilitar-
ian. This perspective renders what the Lord says to Satan problematic:
“Have you noticed My servant, Job? There is no one like him on earth,
a blameless and upright man who fears God and shuns evil!” (1:8). This
raises the question: who is God-fearing? Perhaps God states this view of
Job to inviting us to question the phrase “God-fearing” as well, because
Job may be “God-fearing” only according to social conventions. But if
so, is he truly a righteous person? Satan considers Job unworthy. Accord-
ing to Rahman’s interpretation, such a “just” person does not justify the
world’s existence.
Satan sets a particularly high bar for Job in testing his righteousness
through a chain of disasters and catastrophic tragedies that dispossess
him of all his possessions and afflict his body. The test leaves him sick,
tormented, isolated, diminished, and bereaved. According to the social
norms related to the prevailing public worldview of reward and punish-
ment, Job is positioned among the punished. Thus, in addition to his
profound grief, Job also faces his friends’ demand that he should confess
sins and crimes he has not in fact committed, in order to demonstrate
his righteousness. Yet the drama of Job lies not only in his fierce debate
with his friends, but also with God. At this stage, Job is captive to the
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
popular teleological conception of faith. His experience of suffering is
compounded by the fact that the meaning of his suffering remains hid-
den from him and is in no way compatible with his generous and goodly
lifestyle.
According to the utilitarian mode of faith his friends represent and
profess, he is required to grapple with the violation of the balance between
his merits and the sweeping catastrophes he endures because of them as,
according to them, a truly righteous person must be well rewarded and
live happily. They try desperately to persuade Job to confess his wicked-
ness and repent in order to merit reward and benefit. Job, in his harsh
and defiant tortured responses to God, accepts their basic premise that
a righteous person should receive only goodness, and he is furious and
outraged at the disruption of this sound order, thereby reinforcing Satan’s
claims that there really is no “righteous [person who] is an everlasting
foundation” (Proverbs 10:25) who merits the world’s existence. Hence,
the book of Job therefore depicts a suspense filled quest to determine
who is a truly “righteous” individual. This is a journey resulting from the
argument between God and Satan that explores Job’s essence throughout
the argument between Job and his companions, who become his persecu-
tors, thoroughly shaming and upsetting him. If Job’s righteousness is not
ultimately proven, then Satan’s contention that Job is unworthy will be
vindicated, because his faith stems fully from his desire for reward. But
if he turns out to be different, as a faithful and righteous man uncondi-
tionally committed to the truth, God will win this “wager.”
Job’s Faith Before the Calamities
What is faith? In order to understand the book’s agenda in outlining the
theological process that Job undergoes in depth, I would like to examine
three meanings of the term faith (הנומא—emunah), which define three
types of relationship between a person and God in Jewish tradition.
1) Faith Is an Expression of Stability and Security, as the Believer
Depends on God as a Source of Strength and Stability
Examples of this sense of faith can be found throughout the Bible. In
Exodus, when Israel is engaged in battle with the Amalekites, the suc-
cess of the war depends on Moses constantly raising his hands upwards.
And the strength of his hands gradually drained: “But Moses’ hands
grew heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it,
while Aaron and Hur, one on each side, supported his hands; thus his
hands remained steady (emunah) until the sun set” (17:12). The Book
of Numbers includes another expression of this meaning, again employ-
ing the same root for what is known historically as a caregiver, such as a
nanny or nurse. Moses actually raises this as a challenge: “Did I produce
Hannah Kehat
all these people, did I engender them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry
them in your bosom as a caregiver (omen) carries an infant,’ to the land
that You have promised on oath to their fathers?” (11:12). Likewise, in
Psalms: “Trust in the LORD and do good, abide in the land and remain
loyal (emunah)” (37:3), meaning to graze with confidence in God as a
shepherd. The Book of Esther also employs this sense: “He was foster
father (omen) to Hadassah—that is, Esther—his uncle’s daughter, for she
had neither father nor mother” (2:7). The concept of foster care derives
from this sense of a caregiver who holds total responsibility for someone
else, like a mother and a father.4
2) Faith as Belief in the Reality of God, an Expression of Religious
Identity
This sense of faith is a metaphysical mental attachment to God as a spiri-
tual higher force, and as a chosen commitment to a way of life rooted in
basic religious assumptions. For instance, in the Book of Exodus: “And
the people believed (Vaya’aminu); and when they heard that the Lord had
remembered the Children of Israel, and that He had seen their affliction,
then they bowed their heads and worshipped. (4:31); And they believed
(Vaya’aminu) in the Lord, and in His servant Moses” (14:31). This concept
gives birth to the word, ‘Amen,’ which expresses agreement, commitment
and joining a religious statement, such as a blessing and Kaddish.
3) Faith from the Language of Loyalty: Honesty and Truth
Examples of this are found throughout the Bible. The Book of Deuteron-
omy says: “for all His ways are justice; a God of faithfulness (El-Emunah)
and without iniquity, just and right is He” (Deuteronomy 32:4). And
“for they are a very froward generation, children with no faithfulness
(Emun)” (ibid., 20). Or the verse in the Book of Lamentations: “They
are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. (Emunatecha)” (Lam-
entations 3:23) or another verse: “Roam the streets of Jerusalem, search
its squares, look about and take note: you will not find anyone engaged;
There is no one who acts justly, who seeks integrity (Emunah); that I
should pardon her” (Jeremiah 5:1). This sense of faith is expressed in the
word trust (Emun), because only those who excel in uprightness, honesty,
and truth have trust.
These three concepts of faith are intertwined. The confidence in
God’s rule over His world with grace and truth stems from a belief in
His metaphysical superiority. Unlike a person who is limited in their
abilities, He is capable of dispensing justice. The expectation of justice
emanates from a moral concept of loyalty to truth and honesty. The hope
of those who follow God and trust Him for their reward depends upon
this perception. Furthermore, the worldview governed by this doctrine
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
of reward and punishment creates a sense of the power of knowledge and
control of one’s fate: knowing the correct action, the incorrect action,
and what to expect accordingly. This knowledge gives one a sense of basic
security. As noted above, these two aspects, confidence and trust, depend
on the third sense of faith in God’s metaphysical transcendence: faith in
a higher and trustworthy power that can and will rule the world through
justice, reward, and punishment. There is additional value in believing in
God’s metaphysical transcendence as it informs human spiritual existence,
expressing the experience of transcendence that is also part of humanity,
since the human partakes in the Divine above. It can therefore be said
that these three dimensions of faith reflect the supreme, divine dimen-
sion of human life.
In the book of Job, a person’s relationship to God is determined
by the function of dependence and confidence in God’s higher power.
This discussion depicts a prevailing concept of expecting a quid pro quo
relationship, i.e., that God’s benevolence or retribution corresponds to
a person’s actions. If a person is deprived of benefit, it is because they
did not give what God required of them, that is, they did not act as a
righteous person. If a person is righteous, it results in them getting what
they deserve.
This perception creates a one-dimensional picture of reality. A hu-
man’s condition reflects their relationship with God, whether good or
bad. Therefore, one who succeeds in this world, a blessed person, can be
seen as a reflection of the divine gift they merit, and vice versa. In such
a worldview, there is no problem requiring theodicy. It is impossible for
a good person to suffer evil and an evil person to prosper. Whoever is
doing well is righteous and whoever is not doing well is evil,5 even if they
appear to be righteous, since this must be untrue and their righteousness
mere pretense. It is easy to identify common human habits of perceiving
the victim as guilty in this text, both in their own eyes and in the eyes of
others: “Why did I deserve this? I must have acted wrongly,” and “if this
happened to him, he probably deserves it,” and so on. A very common
pattern in society, which often leads to what is called “victim-blaming.”
A critical reading of both the primary and frame stories reveals how
the author links the collapse of Job’s physical world to the collapse of his
spiritual world. When Job’s harsh words deny the doctrine of retribution,
the author defies not only the worldview of utilitarian faith, but also
institutionalized mass education that more generally presents a single,
uniform, normative mode of religious existence and belief in God. Such
pedagogy is based on the intergenerational transmission of basic truths
that cannot be challenged, inculcated through social policing and the
religious establishment’s tyranny in imposing the “correct” opinion.
Job links the religious establishment and the “correct” opinion through
his friends: “Indeed, you are the [voice of ] the people, and wisdom will
Hannah Kehat
die with you” (12:2). The book of Job thus ranks the three types of faith
discussed above. A belief of security and dependence is less valuable than
transcendent, non-utilitarian faith. This stems from recognition of and
devotion to God. The book demonstrates the childishness of utilitarian
faith as an extension of infant foster care,6 with its dependence on the
mother figure and the hands that hold the baby safely, as we saw above in
the belief in the stability of Moses’s hands, both in war and as a “nanny.”
It is a yearning for nourishment, protection, and security. Dependence
on the mother is transferred in the same form to dependence on God.
This human attitude toward the Creator also involves faith in reward
and fear of punishment.
One finds the two paths to faith in the Bible. The first is the tran-
scendent and clear path that challenges the believer to reach the level of
unconditional love for and devotion to God. The second, however, is not
identified as an ideal way to seek connection with God. Rather, it stems
from the educational agenda represented in the chapters addressing the
subject of divine reward and punishment. On one hand, we have the first
paragraph of the Shema liturgy, which presents the lofty goal of faith in
God and walking in His ways out of commitment and passion for divine
truth: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with
all you might” (Deuteronomy 6:4–5). On the other hand, the second
chapter of the Shema promises rewards for fulfilling commandments:
If then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving
your God and serving Him with all your heart and soul, I will give the rain of
your land in its season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new
grain and wine, and oil. (Ibid., 11:13–21)
The promises in this paragraph bolster motivation for observing the com-
mandments. and extend the historiosophical agenda of the Bible, begin-
ning with Genesis and continuing throughout. It instills the principle of
reward and punishment, that “there is a Judge and there is a judgement”
(Vayikra Rabba, chapter 23:1) and that the world is overseen and super-
vised by God. The purpose of the historiographic stories in Genesis and
in Exodus, up until the giving of the Torah, is to impart to humanity the
basic principle that the world is governed by law and is not arbitrary and
lawless.7 This explains the saying of Rabbi Ishmael son of R. Nachman:
“Twenty-six generations (as the number of generations of the biblical story
until the Exodus from Egypt) preceded through the land (derekh eretz)
to the Torah” (ibid., 9:3). Derekh eretz connotes human morality based
on a biblical historiosophical concept that aims to impart a principle of
reward and punishment and to educate humanity to responsibility and
morality. To this end, many Torah portions promise abundance and suc-
cess as divine reward for good behavior, and the opposite, deprivation
and suffering, as punishment for bad behavior or violation of divine law.
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
Establishment of this agenda begins already in the second chapter
of Genesis, when God warns Adam “But as for the tree of knowledge
of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for on the day you eat of it,
you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). It continues throughout the entire
Torah. At the Revelation on Mount Sinai, God says: “For I your God am
an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children,
upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me;
but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love
Me and keep My commandments” (Exodus 20:4–5). The culmination of
the doctrine of retribution is found in repeated exhortations in Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy. For example, in the Torah portion Behukotai,
(cf. Leviticus 26: 3–4). The converse, warnings that negative behavior
will result in heavy punishments, also follow: “But if you do not obey
Me and do not observe all these commandments, if you reject My laws
and spurn My rules, so that you do not observe all My commandments
and you break My covenant, I in turn will do this to you: I will wreak
misery upon you—consumption and fever, which cause the eyes to pine
and the body to languish; you shall sow your seed to no purpose, for
your enemies shall eat it” etc. (ibid., 14–17). This reading also displays
a clear intention to educate a man who, when it comes to his fate, will
know that nothing is left to chance in this world. Everything is from
God’s hands: I too will remain hostile to you: I in turn will smite you
sevenfold for your sins (ibid., 21–24). This agenda can also be found
throughout many chapters of Deuteronomy: “Know, therefore, that only
your God is God, the steadfast God who keeps the divine covenant faith-
fully to the thousandth generation of those who love God and keep the
divine commandments” etc. (Deuteronomy 7:9–13). And also, the entire
chapter 28 of Deuteronomy.8
The theological problem that the book of Job engages arises from
the idea that divine management of the world according to reward and
punishment does not stop at the belief that God rewards man for their
actions. Rather, the idea of the conditioning between human actions
and the divine response, quickly flipped on its head, from depending
on God to a tendency to manipulate him. Man has become utilitarian,
seeking to please and ingratiating themselves to God in order to receive
positive rewards, much like children facilely manipulate their parents.
It is thus possible to explain the prevalent impulse in the book’s frame
story to curse God. For if He is responsible for everything that happens
to people, He will be blamed for everything that does not please people
and be cursed. This is a phenomenon that can be found in relation to a
father or ruler who is supposed to provide for the needs of his children
or subjects, but when he disappoints, he becomes the target of anger and
perhaps even curses.
Hannah Kehat
The human effort to secure abundance and blessing through actions
that please God also plays a role in biblical narratives. In Genesis, when
Jacob fleeing his brother on the road to Haran, he vows: “If God remains
with me, protecting me on this journey that I am making, and giving
me bread to eat and clothing to wear and I return safe to my father’s
house—the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up
as a pillar, shall be God’s abode; and of all that You give me, I will set
aside a tithe for You” (Genesis 28:20–22). One can see in Jacob’s vow
how natural and necessary it is in times of distress and uncertainty for
people to cling to every trace of hope and possibility to influence their
future. Therefore, prayers and requests multiply, and rituals related to
commandments were devised that engender hopes and even promises that
things will improve. For Job, as noted above, this is expressed in his of-
fering sacrifices to please God in case his sons have sinned (Job 1:4–5).
This teleological approach gives people tools with which they can build,
if you will, a “life history.”
Our sages dealt with this issue from several perspectives. The Baby-
lonian Talmud teaches that some things do not depend on human ac-
tion: They also debated the question of how people make conditions by
choosing to perform commandments for the sake of divine reward. In the
Mishnah, Antigonus of Socho says: “Do not be like slaves who serve the
rabbi in order to receive a reward, but rather be like slaves who serve the
rabbi not in order to receive a reward and may the fear of God be upon
you” (Tractate Avot 1:3). Similarly, an aphorism in Tractate Berakhot of
the Babylonian Talmud invalidates fulfilling commandments “not for their
own sake.” It quotes Psalm 111:10 “The beginning of wisdom is fear of
the Lord, a good understanding have all who fulfill them” (Psalm 111:10),
pointing out that “it is not stated simply: ‘All who fulfill,’ but rather:
‘All who fulfill them,’ those who perform these actions as they ought to
be performed, meaning those who do such deeds for their own sake, not
those who do them not for their own sake” about whom Rava says “it
would have been preferable for him had he not been created” (Berakhot
17:1). A contrasting approach expressed by the sages that accepts acts
with instrumentalist intentions as having religious value is found in a
baraita in Tractate Rosh Hashanah that teaches that whoever performs
a mitzvah for reward is still considered a completely righteous person:
“Isn’t it taught in a baraita: If one gives charity, saying: I give this stone
for charity in order that my children may live, or: I give it in order that
through it I may merit life in the World-to-Come, he is still considered
a full-fledged righteous person?” (Rosh Hashanah, 4:11).
Indeed, the Torah often discusses reward and punishment in order to
save a person from harmful transgressions, despite the danger that this
may lead to a utilitarian approach to observing the commandments. It
is also possible to understand the human tendency to subordinate faith
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
to the utilitarianism of quid pro quo by the deep human need to try to
control one’s future and destiny, and to produce a rational interpreta-
tion of what happens to him. This is an ancient phenomenon in human
development whose roots lie in fetishism and magic.
However, at the same time, both in the Torah and in rabbinic lit-
erature, there is a moral preference for the pure faith of the first state-
ment of “Lishmah,” for the unconditional love of God, for religious and
ethical commitment without considerations of utility and recompense,
which has been defined in philosophy, especially Kantian thought, as the
“deontological” approach.
In the Middle Ages, Maimonides emphasized the importance of faith
and action for its own sake:
A person should not say: “I will fulfill the mitzvot of the Torah and occupy
myself in its wisdom in order to receive all the blessings which are contained
within it or in order to merit the life of the world to come.” “[Similarly,] I will
separate myself from all the sins which the Torah warned against so that I will
be saved from all the curses contained in the Torah or so that [my soul] will not
be cut off from the life of the world to come.” It is not fitting to serve God in
this manner. A person whose service is motivated by these factors is considered
one who serves out of fear. He is not on the level of the prophets or of the wise.
The only ones who serve God in this manner are common people, women, and
minors. They are trained to serve God out of fear until their knowledge increases
and they serve out of love. (Hilkhot Teshuva 10:1)
Scholars of religion do indeed view the concept of observance for its
own sake as the development of a higher level of religious belief. Among
sociologists and scholars engaging in cultural inquiry, it is generally as-
sumed that the development of religions and the veneration of gods was
rooted in human fears, wishes, and wonder at the forces and power of
nature. Attempts to please the gods and mitigate their rage resulted in
idol worship, sacrifices, prayers, and magic. These were the beliefs of
antiquity. With the growth of knowledge and cultural criticism, mono-
theistic faith established a transcendental concept of a sublime and self-
sufficient deity. Julius Guttmann, who engaged extensively in religious
criticism, noted that worship is a choice to commit to a world of true
values without considerations of expediency (Guttmann 2000, chapter 5,
pp. 65–67). Yeshayahu Leibovitz (1981, 2005, pp. 311–314), who devised
his theocentric mode of divine transcendence on the basis of the Kantian
critical thought that is already found in Maimonides. He was known
for his criticism of society, nationalism, and subjective religiosity. He
sharply criticized any anthropocentric concept of observing mitzvot out
of expectation of reward or out of expectation of God answering prayers.
Furthermore, Guttmann (1952, pp. 224–225) argued, the transcendental
approach expropriates belief in the divine from the limited bounds of
human consciousness. Attempts to decipher what is happening in the
Hannah Kehat
world within the framework of the human logic of reward and punish-
ment, according to the structures of human consciousness, diminishes
perception of God. It restricts it to the imitations of the human mind,
negating God’s transcendent infinity, which exceeds the finitude of hu-
man thought. Thus, the journey of the believer toward impartial faith is
an ascension toward a transcendent and unlimited conception of divinity
beyond a utilitarian conception with pantheistic-pagan roots.
Nevertheless, utilitarian faith is a central component of religious tradi-
tion. Ethical and ritual acts are performed to influence the future, and
they range far beyond the commandments of the Torah, including many
prayers, virtues, acts of kindness and charity, and more. This is common
in Jewish tradition, as it is in other cultures. Critical reading, as I have
suggested, reveals how this approach lies at the center of the theological
discourse in the book of Job. We have seen above that in the opening of
the book, contrary to the description of Job as “And that man was whole-
hearted and upright, and one that feared God, and shunned evil” (Job
1:1), Satan claims that Job does not really fear God, because he maintains
a quid pro quo relationship with God: “Then Satan answered the Lord:
‘Does Job not have good reason to fear God? Why, it is You who have
fenced him round, him and his household and all that he has. You have
blessed his efforts so that his possessions spread out in the land. But lay
Your hand upon all that he has, and he will surely blaspheme You to
Your face” (ibid., 9–11). Satan thus does what should not be done, cast-
ing doubt on Job’s perfect image as a figure that ostensibly justifies the
existence of the world in which God prides himself. Satan’s accusations
that Job’s character is not what it seems, that his righteousness is actu-
ally self-righteousness attributable to his prosperity, shatters the illusion.
This, he contends, will reveal the bleak truth of his spiritual emptiness
and faithlessness. Indeed, consideration of Job’s behavior toward his sons
suggests that Satan is right. Job’s image is fallacious. His appearance as
a perfect man who merits wealth and happiness is misleading and false,
and he is not truly righteous. Satan endeavors to burst this bubble. In
reality, it ought to be forbidden to reveal what he purports to uncover
regarding utilitarian bias.
The idealized portrait of “the righteous one who prospers” preserves
a beautiful and comfortable social structure. The need for this structure
will be revealed later on when we analyze the conversation between Job
and his social environment. The text portrays a discourse that is censored
and disciplined. There are hidden rules for what you can say and what
you cannot say. The worst thing one can do is to curse God, just as Job
constantly fears that his sons will curse God at their feasts. The Bible
commends Job, who, despite all that happens to him, refrains from curs-
ing God. However, enraged by his misfortune, he does not refrain from
cursing the consequences of God’s actions, his mother’s conception of
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
him, and the day of his birth. This is a sort of refinement of the urge
to curse God out of great anger and refusal to accept what is happening
to him. Job, who experiences disaster as a direct act of God against him
wants to curse God, but he refrains: “Nevertheless, Job said nothing
sinful” (2:10). Thus, the amoraic sage Rava said: “he did not sin with
his lips, but he sinned in his heart” (Baba Batra, 16:1). Ibn Ezra wrote
in reference to Job: “Meaning that he will yet sin with his lips and utter
words from his mouth with sorrow” (Ibn Ezra’s commentary on Job 2).
Indeed, Job’s remarks later in the book are harsh and bitter, even
against God. While he does not curse him explicitly or directly, he levels
serious accusations against him, especially accusing Him of fighting him:
“For the arrows of the Almighty are in me; My spirit absorbs their poison”
(6:4). And further, “On my part, I will not speak with restraint; I will
give voice to the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness
of my soul. Am I the sea or the Dragon, that You have set a watch over
me?” (7:11–12). He protests the unfair power imbalance between God
and the human, even if they have sinned against Him, for in the end
they cannot really harm Him: “Will You not look away from me for a
while, Let me be, till I swallow my spittle? If I have sinned, what have
I done to You, Watcher of men?” (7:19–20). Throughout the book, Job
does not withhold harsh criticism of God for harming him, demonstrating
that the figure of Job does not fit God’s description of him in the frame
story, and actually seems closer to how Satan describes him.
Furthermore, I suggest that the figure of Job’s wife reflects his true
nature. She removes the false veil of conventional discourse, telling him:
“You still keep your integrity! Blaspheme God and die!” (2:9). Some read
Job’s narrative in a superficial manner, interpreting Job’s wife as Satan’s
representative who incites him to do what Satan claims he will and curse
God.9 One might also perceive a mocking tone regarding Job’s helplessness
and refusal to curse. But the critical reading I propose presents another
option. Job’s wife is act ually the only one who says what she thinks out
loud, pronouncing that which is forbidden to say.
This interpretation is suggested in a work painted by George de la Tour
between 1625 and 1650, in which he represents Job’s wife, illuminating
and supporting him. While he sits broken and submissive, she is depicted
as large and powerful, as a source of strength and comfort. The painting
also has an ironic aspect that gestures to Job’s spiritual emptiness. It cor-
responds to Job’s description of his life before Satan’s afflictions, when
he felt that God guarded him and illuminated his way, the Lord’s candle
above his head: “O that I were as in months gone by, When His lamp
shone over my head, when I walked in the dark by its light” (29:2–3).
In the context of the conventional interpretation of Job’s wife as Satan’s
emissary, the painting suggests a cynical and critical positioning of Satan
as usurping God.
Hannah Kehat
Despite all the overt and implicit criticism of Job at the end of the book,
after he retracts his accusations and accepts what God says to him, God
acknowledges him: “After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the
Lord said to Eliphaz the Yemenite, ‘I am incensed at you and your two
friends, for you have not spoken the truth about Me as did My servant
Job” (42:7). In light of this, Job’s story can be read as describing a per-
sonal process of growth, repair, and ascension.
Job’s Spiritual Process
Yosef Tzamudi (1997, pp. 16–31), who reads the book of Job holistically
as a unified work, sees Job as undergoing a spiritual process as part of
the main plot. He shows how, during the first dialogue cycle between
Job and his friends, Job first distances himself from God and then draws
closer to Him once more, the recurring rapprochement expressed in the
verse: “He may well slay me; I may have no hope; Yet I will argue my
case before Him” (13:15).10 In so doing, he reconciles the figure of Job
with God’s description of his character in the frame story as “a blame-
less and upright man who fears God” (1:8). According to Tzamudi, Job
reaches his spiritual peak in chapter 13, when he recovers his intimacy
with God a status unsurpassed for the rest of the book. However, in my
opinion, chapter 13 represents a stage within a longer spiritual process that
continues to develop through the main plot, extending to the end of the
book and the epilogue, which rejoins the frame story as God affirms Job’s
spiritual achievement as valid and true as opposed to his friends’ errors.
Tzamudi (pp. 26–27), also recognizes that Job’s arguments at the
beginning of the main plot, in his first lament and his friends’ initial
responses, hardly concern the question of divine justice but are focused
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
on personal grief and anger. Job’s complaints regarding divine justice
and his demands for a hearing with God appear later in response to his
friends’ harsh accusations. As such, in his opinion, the central theologi-
cal issue in the book is not the question of divine retribution, but the
relationship between a person and their God. This is the central pain
reflected in Job’s speeches in the first and last parts of the book. A fasci-
nating process ensues in which this issue is developed. Tzamudi is correct
that his fellows’ accusations that he must have sinned and was therefore
punished drive heated debates of the question of divine justice and how
it functions. Yet before this, his great pain is mainly the heavy mourn-
ing for the loss of everything he knew and especially for the feeling of
alienation from his God.
Indeed, Job proceeds through the five stages of grief identified by
the American psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, (2005): denial, anger,
bargaining, depression, and acceptance. However, alongside this emo-
tional process, Job also undergoes a conceptual process of understanding
the theological poverty of his previous faith and achieves a theological
recognition of the kind of pure non-utilitarian faith discussed in the
introduction. Viewing this process through Kübler-Ross’s scheme assists
critical analysis of the text. The stages of Job’s mourning can be identi-
fied both in the frame story through his reactions to the tragedies that
befall him, and in the main story through the dialogues with his friends.11
Indeed, his first reaction is denial, expressed ostensibly in his assent to
their judgment of his troubles, but which is shattered very quickly. This
leads to anger and despair, acceptance, and finally hope, which comes
from a new existential understanding.
Step One: Denial
In the frame story, the first stage is his acceptance of the judgment, which
seems to be an initial denial of the depth of the disasters. “Then Job
arose, tore his robe, cut off his hair, and threw himself on the ground
and worshiped; He said, ‘Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and
naked shall I return there; the Lord has given, and the Lord has taken
away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ For all that, Job did not sin, nor
did he cast reproach on God” (1:20–22). At the end of chapter 2, after
he is once again attacked again by Satan and afflicted with terrible boils
from head to toe, his reaction changes and something shifts within him.
At this point, the Bible emphasizes that he did not sin with his speech:
“and he sat in ashes” (ibid., 8), “For all that Job said nothing sinful”
(ibid., 10). While his anger and frustration build, he does not yet share
his feelings with anyone. Job’s friends who come from afar to comfort
him encounter a broken man: “They sat with him on the ground seven
Hannah Kehat
days and seven nights. None spoke a word to him for they saw how very
great was his suffering” (2:13).
Step Two: Anger
After days of silence, Job’s anger wells up in his heart and bursts out
loudly as he curses the day of his birth and his coming into the world.
He does not withhold harsh and angry curses, uttering them with great
force. Yet he still refrains from cursing God and only directs his anger
at God’s creation (3:3–12).12 Job’s anger grows, and he is conscious of
it. Chapter 6 begins with Job describing his anger as truly infinite and
heavier than all the sand of the sea. Yet his expressions of anger are mixed
with intimations of the next stages, and they fade toward the end of the
book. From chapter 28 onwards when Job delivers proverbs of wisdom,
and his words express a different state of mind, the storm subsides.
Third and Fourth Steps: Bargaining and Depression
Kübler-Ross argued that the stages of grief do not always manifest in
the usual order. Job’s speeches stage a back-and-forth between the three
main stages of the grieving process: anger, bargaining, and depression.
Having demonstrated Job’s anger above, I will proceed to present his
bargaining power.
Job’s bargaining with God appears mainly in his response to Bildad in
chapters 9–10 and onwards, focusing on three existential trials that befall
him. The background to their exchange is how these successive calamities
undermine his faith in his connection with God. What first distresses him
is his loss of faith in God’s proximity and that God no longer hears him,
experienced as God “hiding his face” from him, a profound experience
of loss. The reality he knew until now no longer exists. Furthermore, his
prior knowledge is invalidated as he no longer knows what he thought
he knew. It is an experience that involves a feeling of darkness, expressed
in his first lament for a tormented man like himself: “To a man whose
way is hidden, whom God has hedged in” (3:23).
This pain expresses double agony. First, God—his benefactor, keeper,
and nourisher, the good influencer that guided his successful life—has
abandoned him. Second, he is confronted with a sense of total ignorance.
This same distress is repeated in his answer to Bildad in chapter 9, where
he laments not being able to see God and speak to Him: “He passes me
by—I do not see Him; He goes by me, but I do not perceive Him” (9:11).
Job’s distress can be explained by the existential helplessness that ac-
companies it. His lack of knowledge also humiliates him. This sense of
ignorance and loss of the illusion of control over his life is an affront
to human pride. His friends’ grave accusations, suggesting that they
know the solution to his suffering in discovery of his sins,13 exacerbate
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
this experience. Job, who rejects this idea outright, persists in severe
incomprehension of why all this is occurring. His plea for God to reveal
Himself to him can already be found in his first speeches and continues
throughout the book: “Man cannot win a suit against God. If he insisted
on a trial with Him, He would not answer one charge in a thousand”
(9:2–3); “He passes me by—I do not see Him; He goes by me, but I
do not perceive Him. He snatches away—who can stop Him? Who can
say to Him, ‘What are You doing?’” (ibid., 11–12). “If I summoned
Him and He responded, I do not believe He would lend me His ear”
(ibid., 16). This plea continues in chapter 10: “I am disgusted with life;
I will give rein to my complaint, speak in the bitterness of my soul. I
say to God, ‘Do not condemn me; Let me know what You charge me
with’” (10:1–2), “Yet these things You hid in Your heart; I know that
You had this in mind” (ibid., 13), and again in chapter 13 “How many
are my iniquities and sins? Advise me of my transgression and my sin”
(13:23). Job’s life experience was wonderfully harmonious. He was fine
as was God with him. And now, everything has gone wrong. God and
His grace are completely gone: “Why do You hide Your face, and treat
me like Your enemy?” (ibid., 24).
Job’s second distress is his loss of faith in divine governance, in God’s
providence over His creatures and their actions, in the widely accepted
belief that the righteous are rewarded and the wicked punished. Though
unsure that justice will be done, Job begs for a hearing: “But I would
plead for mercy with my judge” (9:15). He yearns to demonstrate his
righteousness after having been vilified by his friends as evil due to his
apparent punishment. He wants a hearing before the God who has treated
him badly for no fault of his own but does not believe that he will be
vindicated,14 because God is also the supreme judge. He is so angry and
frustrated that he accuses God of senseless abuse. This is where he con-
fronts the great existential frustration entailed in the reality of “righteous
man who is afflicted with adversity the wicked man who enjoys prosperity”
(Berakhot 7a), which characterizes the prophetic discourse in the Bible
beginning with Abraham: “Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring
death upon the innocent as well as the guilty, so that innocent and guilty
fare alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal
justly?” (Genesis 18:25). This is the same phenomenon that Jeremiah,
(12:1). the prophet protests: “You will win, O Eternal One, if I make
claim against You, Yet I shall present charges against You: Why does the
way of the wicked prosper? Why are the workers of treachery at ease?”
Job also protests the injustice of divine judgment: “For He crushes me
for a hair; He wounds me much for no cause. He does not let me catch
my breath but sates me with bitterness. If a trial of strength—He is the
strong one. If a trial in court—who will summon Him for me? Though I
were innocent, my mouth would condemn me; though I were blameless,
Hannah Kehat
He would prove me crooked. I am blameless—I am distraught; I am sick
of life” (Job 9:17–21). “Does it benefit You to defraud, to despise the
toil of Your hands, while smiling on the counsel of the wicked?” (10:3).
“To watch me when I sinned And not clear me of my iniquity. Should
I be guilty—the worse for me! And even when innocent, I cannot lift
my head. So sated am I with shame and drenched in my misery” (ibid.,
14–15). He slams God with the claim that his leadership is unjust and
fails to distinguish between good and evil: “It is all one; therefore, I say,
‘He destroys the blameless and the guilty.’ When suddenly a scourge
brings death, He mocks as the innocent fail. The earth is handed over
to the wicked one; He covers the eyes of its judges. If it is not He, then
who?” (9:22–24).
The third problem is that the idea that the wicked who prosper will
eventually be punished does not resolve his distress as, from what he sees,
it is not borne out in reality. This solution appears in Psalms: “Until I
entered God’s sanctuary and reflected on their fate. ... How suddenly
they are ruined! Wholly swept away by terrors. When you are aroused
You despise their image, as one does a dream after waking, O Lord” (Ps.
73:17, 19–20); “A brutish man cannot know, a fool cannot understand
this. Though the wicked sprout like grass, though all evildoers bloom, it
is only that they may be destroyed forever” (ibid., 92:7–8). Many thinkers
seeking to reconcile this problem of the prosperity of the wicked have
embraced the prediction of their future downfall as a solution.15 Job does
not accept it as a resolution of the great theological difficulty in which
he finds himself. He has lost faith that justice will eventually prevail
because, according to him, it is not true that the wicked are ultimately
lost and the righteous, including himself, destined to be saved. Bildad,
on the other hand, takes this conventional approach that in the end the
good will be rewarded and the wicked will perish, and their world will
collapse: “Such is the fate of all who forget God; the hope of the godless
man comes to naught–whose confidence is a thread of gossamer, whose
trust is a spider’s web” (8:13–14). On the other hand, Job claims that
there is no point in good and proper behavior because the wicked win.
He cries out: “Why do the wicked live on, prosper and grow wealthy?
Their children are with them always, and they see their children’s children.
Their houses are secure, without fear, they do not feel the rod of God.
... They spend their days in happiness and go down to Sheol in peace.
They said to God: ‘Leave us alone; we do not want to learn Your ways.
What is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? What will we gain by
praying to Him?” (21:7–15). An agnostic tone creeps into these verses
undermining faith in God’s presence in the world in general. These are
merely a few of many examples. Job repeatedly expresses anger, despair,
and feelings of abandonment and also bargains by pleading his righteous-
ness before God.
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
Rabbi Soloveitchik (2004’ p. 130) sees the phenomenon of unmerited
suffering as having spiritual and educational value, training a person to
be humble and to be able to cope with human mortality. Therefore, he
condemns Job as culpable for what he expresses at this point, seeing him
as having missed a great spiritual opportunity:
Job had always succeeded previously, acquiring more and more possessions
without experiencing the agony of defeat, failure, and loss. ... Tragedy had to
happen, it was inevitable. An existence that revolves entirely around the person
himself, a constant victory over all resistance, without even once experiencing
defeat, a steady adherence to a fixed model of life that shows no willingness to
change, surrender, deviate—such a mode of existence must end in disaster. Job
lacked an existence of dignity and majesty, which can only be reached through
the dialectical experience of voluntary defeat.
Depression
We have already encountered Job’s deep depression in his opening speech
(chapter 3), when he discovers that all his material achievements have sud-
denly disappeared and that they were thus of no value. This brings about
a realization that all human beings are actually equal, as death reveals
their common mortality. In his anger, he expresses these new insights with
disgust and indignation. After all, he had spent his entire life achieving
status and the appearance of perfection, both material and spiritual. The
first chapter subtly implies that this excessively perfect picture does not
reflect actual reality. His children are not entirely faithful to his way of
life, he constantly worries that they are committing the worst of all sins,
but outwardly, the picture of his perfection shines. His achievements, his
expansive possessions, and his status seem stable.
This apparent perfection is also expressed in the literary qualities of
the first chapter of Job. It excels in its coherent structure, the speakers’
rhetoric, and the events, all of which are harmonious and give a sense
of completeness that later reveals itself as an illusion.16 Now that he has
been stripped of everything, he is required to deal with the question of his
identity. Who is he and what is his value? His identity was based on what
he possessed, which was a great deal: property, family, undisputed status,
and his reputation as a perfect person. In the midst of all this, we are
presented with a fateful question in the frame story about his ontological
identity, about who he is as a man in the midst of all that he owns? In the
main story, from chapter 3 onwards, after everything is taken from him,
he almost collapses. He angrily exhorts that in his naked state, deprived
of all that he possessed, it is desirable for him to take his place among the
dead, for that is where the shame and humiliation of losing his possessions
will be relieved. There, in the realm of the dead, everyone is equal. This
statement certainly reflects a painful internalization of the truth, that there
Hannah Kehat
is no real value in worldly life with its achievements, possessions, and
honor. All at once, it has evaporated and disappeared. With his death as
a man, it will be as if a bubble burst and nothing remains. In the wake
of this loss of all his possessions and negation of his achievements, Job’s
first speech is filled with despair and a longing for something actual.
Yet he does not embrace a full acceptance and justification of judgment,
contrary to what appears in the frame story of chapters 1 and 2, where
he says: “The Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord”
(1:21), or as he said in chapter 2: “Shall we accept only good from God,
and not accept evil?” (2:10). This position of acceptance gives way after
his seven days of silence. His rage and despair erupt from him in a harsh,
anguished speech filled with despair and suicidal desire. His astonished
friends begin to respond. Among them, Eliphaz the Elder rebukes him
with a restrained reproach, reminding him of the principle of reward and
punishment: “Think now, what innocent man ever perished? Where have
the upright been destroyed?” (4:8). He calls on him to repent, and not
presume that he is more righteous than God in refusing to accept the
evil that has been inflicted on him. Job responds by refusing to accept
the judgment that suggests that his punishment is just recompense for
evil. He returns even more intensely to expressing boundless anger. At
this point, he refrains from explicitly expressing anger directly at God,
but it is clearly implied: “If my anguish were weighed, my full calamity
laid on the scales! It would be heavier than the sand of the sea; that is
why I spoke recklessly. For the arrows of the Almighty are in me, my
spirit absorbs their poison; God’s terrors are arrayed against me” (6:2–4).
Rabbi Soloveitchik, criticizes Job’s despair and depression in the wake
of the catastrophes that befall him. He argues that Job missed the oppor-
tunity to transcend both prosperity and suffering, the ability to perceive
the divine “nothingness,” precisely in the collapse of his material world:
The visionary experience is indeed very terrible, but the opposite is also true.
Wherever you find a terrible experience, you will also find a revelation, God
stands before man. ... God addresses the tormented through his suffering, God
speaks to him through every trauma. ... Chastisement is the storm through which
God presented Himself to Job. ... Every time a person captures nothingness out
of the corner of his eye, which is an agonizing experience, he encounters God.17
God turned to Job through abundance and happiness, through the enthusiasm of
joy, but Job missed the message. The jolt moves in the direction of catastrophic
revelation to a dialogue that takes place not through the universal harmony of
the ontic consciousness but through the storm, whose rage is perceived in horror
by the consciousness of nothingness. ... When Job complained and wondered
about the meaning of the dark night of the apocalypse, the absence of God, the
Creator He suddenly found himself facing God, who appeared to him again
in a storm in a catastrophic aspect: “Then the Lord answered Job out of the
tempest.” (38:1)18
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
At the end of the book, Job discovers the “divine truth” and his path to
ascension, but only after God reveals Himself from within the storm.
Ultimately, this new understanding suffuses him with the essence of
believing in God.
Step Five: Acceptance and Completion
Hagai Hoffer (2022), who noted the connection between the processes
in the book of Job and Kübler-Ross’s stages of mourning, reads the end
of Job’s story as expressing a stage of completion:
Job said in reply to the Lord: I know that You can do everything, that nothing
You propose is impossible for You. Who is this who obscures counsel without
knowledge? Indeed, I spoke without understanding, of things beyond me, which
I did not know. Hear now, and I will speak; I will ask, and You will inform me.
I had heard You with my ears; but now I see You with my eyes; Therefore, I
recant and relent, being but dust and ashes. (42:1–6)
This is ostensibly similar to what is said at the beginning of the plot,
when he spoke about the chain of disasters that befell him: “Then Job
arose, tore his robe, cut off his hair, and threw himself on the ground,
and worshipped; He said: ‘Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and
naked I shall return there; the Lord has given, and the Lord has taken
away; blessed be the name of the Lord. For all that, Job did not sin nor
did he cast reproach on God” (1:20–22). However, this is before he con-
fronts the false accusations from his friends and the bitter truth of losing
everything. It is more a denial of disasters than their internalization, not
an acceptance of grief. In subsequent chapters, we saw the great sorrow,
depression, and despair it expresses. I argue that this view of what Job
says as an expression of “completion” is insufficient and does not capture
the essence of the stage Job reaches at the end of the story. Job’s process
had not yet been completed in the preceding chapters. This is the stage
of accomplishment, the end of a process of recovery and self-healing. As
with a physical injury, the body heals, overcomes the trauma, and what
remains is a scab or scar. Thus, in mourning, the soul overcomes grief,
heals itself, and returns to its routine, and perhaps, even to the joy of life.
The emotional process of acceptance of harm from others is much
more complex. If the perpetrator remains present in the life of the victim,
it is difficult to reconcile and recover without their participation in the
healing process. Therefore, our sages decreed that sins between a person
and their fellow cannot be atoned for through Yom Kippur until the sin-
ner satisfactorily makes amends with the friend he harmed. (The word
“satisfaction” expresses the sinner’s responsibility to bring their victim to
a state of physical and emotional correction; a situation in which they
feel “satisfied,” whether through compensation or acknowledgment of the
injustice they committed. Asking for forgiveness and taking responsibil-
Hannah Kehat
ity for the consequences of the injury is an obligation that rests on the
shoulders of the offender and that is required to complete the process:
“Indeed, you are the people. ... But I, like you, have a mind, am not less
than you” (12:2–3). Job sees their popular sayings as false, deceitful, and
flattering, and believes them mistaken in thinking that they will please
God. Instead, he declares that the words with which he addresses God
convey truth, even if they are difficult to hear. He does not take the path
of deception and appeasement but pours out the wrath in his heart, out
of faith in God. In the midst of these difficult words burns an intense
longing for the days when he felt intimacy with God and the security
of his intimate and authentic relationship with Him: “He may well slay
me; I may have no hope; yet will I argue my case before Him. In this
too is my salvation: that no impious man can come into His presence”
(13:15–16). Tzamudi (p. 23) claims that in the epilogue, God affirms the
righteousness of Job’s approach, as one who truly strives to know God
without prejudice and to understand His way of ruling the world: “The
Lord said to Eliphaz the Yemenite: ‘I am incensed at you and your two
friends, for you have not spoken the truth about Me as did My servant
Job” (42:7). They prove the rightness of Job’s approach, as one who truly
strives to know God without prejudices and to understand His way of
leading the world.
Job has discovered the great faith in God concealed beneath his ex-
pressions of rage, similar to the revelation in the verse: “For whom the
Lord loves He rebukes” (Proverbs 3:12). But in this case, a critical reading
reveals that to the contrary, it is Job who reproves God. It is precisely out
of that confidence in God’s love for the truth, confidence in the intimacy
he felt with God, that he is unafraid to express it openly. For out of this
intimacy, he knows Him as one who rejects all flattery. According to his
conception of God, his evaluation is true. The faith and trust in God
that emerge from his words reveal hope in the midst of great darkness.
He expresses the intensity of his longing for God’s presence in his
life, for an era when he felt the light of God shining over his head with
greater vigor. We encounter this later in the personal process he undergoes
in his speech in chapter 29:
O that I were as in months gone by, in the days when God watched over me,
When His lamp shone over my head, When I walked in the dark by its light,
When I was in my prime, When God’s company graced my tent, When the
Almighty was still with me, When my lads surrounded me, When my feet were
bathed in cream, and rocks poured out streams of oil for me. (Job 29:2–6).
These verses testify to an intense longing for the same sense of wholeness
he experienced when God was by his side. Physical abundance merged
in spirit with spiritual ascension, and intimacy with God was a truly
existential experience: “and rocks poured out.” This longing reflects a
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
process of coming to terms with what happened and a desire to return
to God, to the previous state.
An interesting variation on this idea of the intense longing for intimacy
with God from a great spiritual distance is found in Goethe’s monumental
work Faust and corresponds on different levels with the book of Job. The
“Prologue” set in heaven was added to the play some 27 years after its
main composition and is taken from the frame story of the book of Job.
The complex work opens with admiration of the angels who praise God
in contrast with Mephistopheles’s brazenly skeptical satanic speech. Much
has already been written about the parallels with the frame story in Job.
Yet the similarities are not limited to the frame story. There is a clear
parallel in the opening to a discourse in heaven and Satan’s successful
plot to tempt Faust into making a pact with him, a discourse analogous
to Satan’s attempt to subvert Job’s innocence. As we will see, there are
also intersecting points in the main story between Faust, who faces Sa-
tan’s temptation in order to distance him from God and deny Him, and
the figure of Job, who struggles with himself and with his God from the
precipice of oblivion. Similarly, Faust, before his departure with Satan,
discovers a deep longing for God:
I leave behind me field and meadow
Veiled in the dusk of holy night,
Whose ominous and awful shadow
Awakes the better soul to light.
To sleep are lulled the wild desires,
The hand of passion lies at rest;
The love of man the bosom fires,
The love of God stirs up the breast. (Goethe,2004)
Or another passage when he hears early morning prayer:
Your message well I hear, but faith to me is wanting.
Wonder, its dearest child, of Faith is born.
To yonder spheres I dare no more aspire,
Whence the sweet tidings downward float;
And yet, from childhood heard, the old, familiar note
Calls back e’en now to life my warm desire.
Ah! once how sweetly fell on me the kiss
Of heavenly love in the still Sabbath stealing!
Prophetically rang the bells with solemn pealing.
A prayer was then the ecstasy of bliss.
A blessed and mysterious yearning
Drew me to roam through meadows, woods, and skies.
And midst a thousand tear-drops burning,
I felt a world within me rise. (Ibid.)
Hannah Kehat
Despite yearning for the sacred, Faust abandons the path of righteousness
and surrenders himself to Satan. Job, on the other hand, emerges from
depression and despair to a new level of faith.
Throughout his stages of mourning, Job hurls harsh words at God,
which seem almost to confirm Satan’s claim that Job will pass through
the gate of hell and curse God.19 However, Job does not take this step.
On the contrary, after likewise falling from a spiritual high peak into a
deep pit, he is able to break free from it and soar to an even higher peak
of faith. It seems that Goethe could not grasp the possibility of Job’s
leap of faith and condemned his despairing hero to the abyss of Satan’s
oblivion. For Job, attainment of the stage of completion represents a
path of spiritual growth to a higher faith, a stage in which he opened
his ears and heart to God’s words. Even prior to this, according to the
young Elihu who discusses God’s speeches, Job internalizes the lowliness
of his previous faith, which treated his own goodness and purported to
understand, define, and even manage God’s accounts. What helped him
break out of oblivion was God’s revelation and his wondrous words.
God’s Answer from the Storm
Many commentators and scholars have wondered about God’s answer to
Job’s questions regarding the reasons for and causes of the tragedies that
befall him. The fact that God answers him fulfills Job’s wish, the thing
he pleaded for, as we saw above. But the substance of God’s answer does
not address Job’s questions. God appears from the storm. What is this
storm? Perhaps it reflects the agitation of Job’s soul, “He that would
break me with a tempest” (9:17), and it is hinted here that the revelation
emanates like a voice from within, as Abraham Kariv (1968) wrote: “It
is not because of the power of the storm that took place in the hollow
of the world that Job heard God’s answer. Thunder brought him to the
chambers of his soul; lightning shone a new light on it. A tremendous cur-
rent was diverted from within himself to the earth, to the world of God.”
It can also be seen as a typical biblical theophany, for God in many
cases appears and reveals Himself from within a kind of storm.20 But
perhaps this also expresses a recognition that Job is in a catastrophic
situation, and that the storm is an external maelstrom that afflicts him
mercilessly. A destructive and sweeping storm, which does not allow him
to even hold and catch his breath. This is the meaning of the expression:
“For he crushes me for a hair,” because the rest of the verse explains this
in the multitude of wounds and blows that land on him unceasingly,
without him being able to breathe for a moment: “He wounds me much
for no cause; He does not let me catch my breath” (ibid., 17–18). In light
of this, the puzzlement over God’s words is doubly great. Over the course
of about a hundred verses, not once does God address Job’s question as
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
to why he deserved this fate. He describes the challenges of running the
world, endeavoring to arouse Job’s admiration for his greatness and power
in the governing creation. He describes the uniqueness of giant animals,
such as the behemoth and leviathan, and his special power in caring for
these animals. His words leave the reader with the question of what do
these descriptions have to do with Job’s distress? The puzzlement is so
great that there are those who read the answer as satire intended to mock
all wisdom literature and its pretensions to explain the world and God’s
governance.21 Indeed, it is difficult to understand how any of this answers
the existential pain of ignorance that Job expresses at the beginning of
the eulogy he delivers for himself, when he includes himself with those
who: “Who rejoice to exultation, and are glad to reach the grave; To a
man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?” (3:22–23).
God’s speech lifts the veil, not regarding the rationale of His gover-
nance of humanity in general and Job in particular, but of his vast and
infinite leadership in terms of time and supervision of the details of the
infinite number creatures of the universe. God’s wisdom in creation and
governance of the universe is described by Him without mention of hu-
manity. Humanity, as Job understands after God’s answer, is “dust and
ashes” (Genesis 18:27). Although humans are one of the infinite number
of species that populate God’s world and their needs are fulfilled like those
of others, there are creatures many times larger, legendary in size, and they
are also not the center of the world. Human pretension to understand
and even judge God’s ways, as Job demands many times throughout the
book, is ridiculous. It stems from his wisdom, and indeed Job sings a
song of praise for wisdom in one of his speeches (28:12–28). However,
this wisdom is unfounded when trying to understand God’s ways and thus
also when expressing an opinion about them and, perhaps, even when
arguing with Him about right and wrong. The cocoon pretends to be its
creator when Job, like Moses, asks God: “Let me behold Your Presence”
(Exodus 33:18).22 Unlike in Exodus, the author of Job is very critical of
this requirement. With sharp mockery, the Almighty rebuffs his request:
“Who is this who darkens counsel, speaking without knowledge? Gird
your loins like a man; I will ask, and you will inform Me. Where were
you when I laid the earth’s foundations? Speak if you have understand-
ing. Do you know who fixed its dimensions or who measured it with a
line?” (38:2–5).
After God has proved to Job that he knows nothing about ruling the
world in terms of the laws of nature as a whole, he again attacks Job’s
pretension in expressing his opinion on what constitutes proper moral
governance in similar language with the same harsh expressions and openly
invites him to replace him in administering God’s judgments:
Then the LORD replied to Job out of the tempest and said: Gird your loins
like a man; I will ask, and you will inform Me. Would you impugn My justice?
Hannah Kehat
Would you condemn Me that you may be right? Have you an arm like God’s?
Can you thunder with a voice like His? Deck yourself now with grandeur and
eminence; Clothe yourself in glory and majesty. Scatter wide your raging anger;
See every proud man and bring him low. See every proud man and humble him
and bring them down where they stand. Bury them all in the earth; Hide their
faces in obscurity. Then even I would praise you for the triumph your right
hand won you. (40:6–14)
In an overtly cynical tone, God tells him that from his criticism of the
injustice in His governance of the world, it can be understood, as it were,
that in Job’s view God does not treat his creatures properly. “Would you
condemn Me that you may be right?” Job supposedly condemns God
for injustice because he feels that he knows what justice is, and if so, he
feels more “righteous” than God. In a mocking tone, God invites Job to
administer justice correctly and govern the world, an impossible task for
a human. God continues to describe the enormous beasts, the behemoth,
and the leviathan, their ways of life and the satisfaction of their needs,
while mocking Job extensively with rhetorical questions about whether he
would have been able to manage them, if indeed he had been the ruler
of the world in God’s place. After all, Job likens himself to the ruler of
creation, demanding to understand the secrets of governing the world,
which are the secrets of creation itself.
Implicit in this harsh criticism of Job’s pretensions to understand God
is the transcendental answer that negates the attainment of proximity to
God, as Rabbi Yosef Albo beautifully puts it in his Book of Principles
(1870) : “As the sage said when asked if he knew the essence of God,
and he replied: “If I knew him I would be him.”
Yet the reader asks: Why does God answer Job’s existential questions
so ridiculously? Why doesn’t he answer the question of why Job suffered
such harsh retribution? Why do the wicked prosper while a man like
Job, righteous and God-fearing, suffers so much? What is the educa-
tional purpose of this special way in which God answers Job? Several
different answers have been given to this question. Luba Harlap, (1990,
pp. 180 –193) who studied God’s answer to Job, presented the different
approaches to making sense of how God responds to Job’s questions. At
the beginning of her discussion of the matter, she rehearses Job’s main
arguments during his speeches. The first is that he is righteous in his eyes
(13:2–3) and therefore how is it possible that he has suffered so much
and how is it that the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper? (21:7),
“The earth is handed over to the wicked” (9:24). The second, which
stems from the first question, is that by making the wicked prosperous,
God abandons the world and the wicked rule over it (9:22). The third
argument is that what happened to him undermined his faith in God’s
providence in general, God’s relationship with His creatures, and divine
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
justice. Therefore, he asks God to reveal Himself and furthermore grant
him a hearing to demonstrate his righteousness.
Harlap rejects Segal’s negative view (1977, pp. 650–651). that God’s
revelation is an expression of rage at Job’s lack of humility. According to
Segal, God’s answering things unrelated to the substance of Job’s ques-
tions is intended to test Job again to see whether will he again defy God?
Job withstands the trial and does not do so, thus receiving God’s warm
affirmation. Harlap cites Yehezkel Kaufman (1942), who explains that
revelation itself is the answer. Job begs God to speak to him, and receives
God’s answer, even if the content of it does not answer his questions and
engage his arguments. She also cites Kaufman, who identifies two pat-
terns in Job’s prior relationship with God: devotion and revelation. “A
sense of closeness to God” and “revelation of God.” These two spiritual
elements desert Job amid the calamities that befall him. He expresses his
longing for God’s closeness (ibid., p. 609). but even this does not answer
the great existential question of God’s connection with people and God’s
providence. Job asks for revelation, and this will answer the question of
providence, which is why it is so meaningful. When God reveals Himself
and responds to this request, it means that God is watching over and
hearing Him (ibid., p. 614). This is in addition to the burning need to
know and understand what is happening. As Rabbi Meir Leibush ben
Yehiel Michel Wisser, better known as the ‘Malbim,’ argues in the in-
troduction to his commentary on chapter 38: “By God’s revelation by
His counsel, the whole argument has already been completed, for from
this he has shown to know that God watches over the details of people”
(Harlap, pp. 182–183). Kaufman defines this as “the grace of revelation.”
Indeed, Job says in his second response to God: “I had heard You with
my ears; but now I see You with my eyes” (42:5). Hearing and seeing the
divine revelation are significant factors in Job’s spiritual transformation.
Kaufman’s commentary reveals the critique of the tradition of faith in the
Torah, the rewards, and the expectations it develops among its believers.
Harlap also cites Martin Buber’s (1942, pp. 179–180) original answer,
claiming that God’s words teach Job that there is justice in creation be-
yond his righteousness, divine justice revealed in the universe, “I declare,
‘Your steadfast love is confirmed forever’” (Psalm 89:3). According to
Buber, God takes care to give every creature His law, also giving man his
share. This is “influential justice.” While it does not answer Job’s specific
questions, it does answer the general question of divine justice. Buber’s
approach also criticizes the traditional, utilitarian, and egocentric beliefs
presented in Job’s story.
The attitude reflected in Kaufman and Buber can be summarized in
their emphasis on the fact that via God’s answer, Job received a response
to the two questions that bothered him so much through God’s revelation
itself. This proved to Job that God does hear him, and is close to him,
Hannah Kehat
and the content of the revelation says a great deal about God’s providence
in the world, even if not according to Job’s expectations and certainly
not according to human dictates, because the idea that humanity is the
center of existence is flawed. The divine answer teaches Job that his error
lies in humanity’s self-perception as the center of the world, and due to
this he purports to dictate God’s attitude toward him, while God’s words
establish Him as the ruler of the entire world. Behind the pretension to
understand God’s leadership lies a pretension to control it.
The third approach that Harlap presents is that of Jacobson, (1977,
pp. 50–51), who offers two ways of understanding God’s answers. The
first relates to the fact that God responds twice.23 His first answer aims
to change Job’s consciousness of man’s centrality in the world. In chapters
38–39, God presents Job with numerous rhetorical questions about the
conduct of the natural and animal worlds. This expansive world does not
depend on humanity, nor is it centered on it. Rain falls even in places
where there is no trace of humanity: “To rain down on uninhabited land,
on the wilderness where no man is” (38:26). The illusion that humanity is
the central purpose of creation around which everything revolves is wrong
and the cause of Job’s extreme and misguided anger. We have already seen
the emphasis on this answer in Kaufman’s remarks. Jacobson claims that
after the first part, Job is partially convinced and willing to give up the
rest of the argument out of a sense of acceptance, but God is not satis-
fied with this and adds an impassioned second speech in chapters 40–41
describing the two gigantic, lesser-known creatures to Job: the behemoths
(hippopotamuses?) and the whale, whose detailed descriptions indicate
their size and stature. These two animals are far from humanity’s world
and consciousness. God also cares for them and for all their needs, and
Job reveals how much he neither really knows nor understands. He begins
to internalize how small and insignificant a person is.
This recognition is important in order to change the starting point
of his previous faith, a teleological faith in which God’s work also comes
to serve his needs. According to this approach, nature’s speeches are the
correct response to Job’s harsh claims, all of which are based on an an-
thropocentric view, according to which man is the center of being and
God is also supposed to respond to his needs. Jacobson emphasizes the
trend in God’s words not only to place man in his relative place in cre-
ation, but also to attack his pretension to know everything and succeed
in explaining everything that happens in the world. And as noted above,
the thought that man can decipher the secrets of divine leadership, and
his attempts to do so, like Job’s companions, reflect a hidden desire to
control it, and thus to succeed, as it were, in manipulating God’s leader-
ship of the world. Therefore, they advise him to repent and promise him
an improvement in his condition. God’s mockery signals to Job that he
and, even more so, they, were wrong all along, not only in the preten-
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
sion to understand, but even more, in the desire to manipulate God and
actually turn Him into a tool for giving abundance. Job was wrong about
this, too, as Satan said in heaven. According to the author of the book of
Job, this is not worship of God, it is not recognition of the transcendent
and unique God, but rather, a lesser faith.
Job internalizes this, realizing that his theological conception of God
was wrong. Throughout his life, he treated God like a human being and
basically thought he had concocted a quid pro quo transaction with Him.
And here, it turns out, lies his problem. With refined succinctness, he
affirms God’s words, which span nearly one hundred and twenty verses,
and expresses deep regret for his erroneous conduct: “I know that You
can do everything, that nothing You propose is impossible for You. Who
is this who obscures counsel without knowledge? Indeed, I spoke without
understanding of things beyond me, which I did not know” (42:2–3).
In the words of Kariv (ibid.): “The firmness of Job’s mind gave way to
humility to the end, and the trust in God who had filled his soul before
returned as before.”
The second option that Jacobson proposes also contributes to un-
derstanding the fundamental change that Job underwent. Along with
recognizing his impotence as a man, Job discovered the intensity of
the experience of God’s closeness. This understanding is based on Job’s
response, which expresses regret for everything he said throughout the
book, following his experience of revelation: “I had heard You with my
ears, but now I see You with my eyes; Therefore, I recant and relent, be-
ing but dust and ashes” (42:5–6). According to Jacobson, the power of
divine revelation brought Job to a new, more exalted faith consciousness
than he had known before.
Additionally, Job expresses revulsion and remorse for mourning “dust
and ashes,” for all his material possessions. He expresses with great excite-
ment the recognition he has gained of recognizing God’s reality and his
unique relationship to man. He experiences spiritual devotion through
revelation, transcending the dependency and expectations of the reward
that characterized his previous belief in God.
Conclusion
Reading the book of Job through critical thinking helps reveal the moral
and theological positions that its author criticizes and even attacks. A
review of the complex process that Job, the protagonist, goes through
during the double plot, teaches us that the purpose of this essay is to lead
the reader, together with the protagonist, outside and beyond the accepted
popular tradition. To lead them from the accepted and inferior faith,
based on egocentric anthropocentrism, to a higher belief in a Supreme
God, the Creator and Ruler of the universe, transcendental, that is, more
Hannah Kehat
sublime than human wisdom, but also immanent, an Overseer who is
revealed and knows what is happening in his world. He is not captive to
the manipulative conception of utilitarian faith; rather, he expects man
to seek God’s closeness and unconditional devotion to Him. This is the
great faith Job achieves precisely out of his troubles.
We have come to realize that the book of Job, through a long pedagogi-
cal process, undermines the biblical concept of reward and punishment
and even ridicules the attempt to live by it. The book is subversive and
attempts to reduce functional religion, as argued by Isaiah Leibowitz
(1995, p. 37), whose pedagogy advocated critical thinking at every step
of life. He wrote of Job: “Job’s Friends did not speak correctly because
they spoke of God as if He were in charge of the business of the world,
while Job finally understood that God does not play a role in the world,
but that man’s job is to know God” (ibid., 31).
And he adds:
Abraham and Job were both put to trial after there was no doubt that they feared
God, but were tested by the nature of their fear of God: Did they fear God be-
cause He was God, that adherence to Him and the duty to worship Him are the
purpose of man, or did they fear Him only because of the qualities or functions
attributed to Him as man’s overseer and supplier of needs?
A deconstructive reading of the biblical book of Job has taught us
that it is anti-biblical. It presents a theological alternative that challenges
the believer and calls on him to abandon the teleological approach and
believe in God’s greatness solely out of recognition of His greatness and
a desire to cling to Him.
Notes
1. Tur-Sinai (1972) finds such a sharp contrast between the frame story and the dialogues
that, contrary to the popular opinion, whereby the story predates the dialogues, Harihu claims
that the story was rewritten by a later author, after the original story, which was an organic
part of the work, and that most or all of it, was lost.
2. The view of Job as a perfect righteousness is shared both by the interpretation of the
Sages (Mishnah Sota 5:5) and by Jewish thinkers as well as by the Christian interpretation.
See: Rambam (Maimonides, p. 449), New Testament, Epistle of Jacob 10:5. see more (Baskin,
1981)., this is also how modern researchers see it. Like Hoffman (2011, p. 29).
3. This approach is presented by Tzamudi. (1997, pp. 16–17). He discusses the question
of the unity of the book of Job and rejects the claims that separate it into different authors
pp. In a different way, from the point of view of the historical background and archaeological
research, see also at Gertoux (2015), that shows the uniformity of the book, the historical
figure and the plot background.
4. Haviva Pedia considers this bias to be the root of the word “mother” (em), which is
also found in the root of the word “faith” (Emunah), also related linguistically to the word
“trainer” (omen), “mother” (em) and “training” (imun). (Pedia, 2011 p. 123).
The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
5. This is a concept of one-dimensional reward theory. There is a connection between
man’s actions and his destiny, and one can already see his reward in this world. This view is
different from the Calvinist view, which Max Weber pointed to as the factor that drove the
development of Western capitalism, especially American capitalism. In the Calvinist approach,
the predestination determines who is the chosen one in God’s eyes regardless of his actions.
The motivation for success at any cost involves seeing it as a divine choice in this person.
(Weber, 1930. (
6. See Jacob Klein’s commentary in his commentary on the words of Eliyahu (Galil.
1999, p. 185).
7. See Ramban on Genesis 1:45: “And Rabbi Yitzchak gave a reason for this.”
8. “Now, if you obey your God, to observe faithfully all the divine commandments
which I enjoin upon you this day, your God will set you high above all the nations of the
earth. All these blessings shall come upon you and take effect, if you will but heed the word
of your God. ... But if you do not obey your God to observe faithfully all the command-
ments and laws which I enjoin upon you this day, all these curses shall come upon you and
take effect: Cursed shall you be in the city and cursed shall you be in the field. ... If you
fail to observe faithfully all the terms of this Teaching that are written in this book ... God
will inflict extraordinary plagues upon you and your offspring, strange and lasting plagues,
malignant and chronic diseases” (See the whole chapter).
9. See Gutman, Nava (2004) Utzit, Yearbook for the Study of the Bible and the Ancient
Middle East, Sarah Yefet: (editor), Jerusalem: Magnes: Issue 14, pp. 205 - 214. Gutman also
quotes Augustine, who defined Job’s wife in the words: ‘Help against Satan’ (adiutrix diaboli).
Calvin called her: Satan’s instrument: granum Satanae. Thomas Aquinas believed that Satan
chose her to incite Job.
10. See Tzamudi (p. 31), the discussion of the doubling of the spelling of the word “lo/no”
in this verse, Tzamudi, rejects the opinion that the original word was “no,” and the positive
spelling changed over time. Tur-Sinai also sees this in the positive way, in accordance with
Job’s words in Chapter Six, 8–10.
11. Hagai Hoffer (2022), in his blog about the Bible writes about identifying these stages
in the story of Job.
12. “Perish the day on which I was born, and the night it was announced, ‘A male has
been conceived!’ May that day be darkness; May God above have no concern for it; May
light not shine on it; May darkness and deep gloom reclaim it; May a pall lie over it; May
what blackens the day terrify it. May obscurity carry off that night; May it not be counted
among the days of the year; May it not appear in any of its months; May that night be
desolate; May no sound of joy be heard in it; May those who cast spells upon the day damn
it, those prepared to disable Leviathan; May its twilight stars remain dark; May it hope for
light and have none; May it not see the glimmerings of the dawn—Because it did not block
my mother’s womb, and hide trouble from my eyes. Why did I not die at birth, expire as I
came forth from the womb? Why were there knees to receive me, or breasts for me to suck?”
13. On the failure of his friends, see Frish (2024 pp. 13–18).
14. Job requests his trial before God fourteen times throughout the book. Elihu criticizes
this request repeatedly in his speech.
15. For example, see Ramban (1966).
16. See Hoffman (2011, p. 300).
Hannah Kehat
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18. Ibid., p. 120.
19. See for example the following verses in the book of Job: 9:2–3, 18, 20–24 32–35,
10:2–3, 18–19, 16:11–18, 17:14–17.
20. See Genesis 15:17, Exodus 19:18, Kings 1 19:11, Isaiah 21:1, 18:1–4, Job 4:14–15.
21. See Ararat (2005).
22. It should be noted that according to Rav in Tractate Baba Batra 15:1, one of the
opinions is that Moses wrote the book of Job.
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The Subversive Journey of the Book of Job
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