The Vision in Job 4 and Its Role in the Book: Reframing the Development of the Joban Dialogues. Studies of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on ... IV (Forschungen Zum Alten Testament 2.Reihe) 9783161535338, 9783161536311, 3161535332

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Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe Edited by Konrad Schmid (Zürich) · Mark S. Smith (New York) Hermann Spieckermann (Göttingen)

75

Ken Brown

The Vision in Job 4 and Its Role in the Book Reframing the Development of the Joban Dialogues Studies of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on Early Jewish Monotheism Vol. IV

Mohr Siebeck

Ken Brown, born 1982; 2010 MA in Biblical Studies; 2015 Dr. theol.; was a member of the Sofja-Kovalevskaja Research Group “Unity and Diversity in Early Jewish Monotheisms” in Göttingen; currently teaching at Whitworth University (Spokane, WA, USA).

e-ISBN PDF 978-3-16-153631-1 ISBN 978-3-16-153533-8 ISSN 1611-4914 (Forschungen zum Alten Testament, 2. Reihe) The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

© 2015 by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany. www.mohr.de This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was printed by Laupp & Göbel in Nehren on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Nädele in Nehren. Printed in Germany.

To Andrea

Preface Preface Preface

Writing is a journey of discovery, and often leads to unexpected places. This book took me by surprise, as what I thought to be a minor point in a different project opened up a new vista too enticing to abandon. When I first discovered the theory defended in this thesis, I thought it far-fetched and set about to refute it. Instead I became convinced of it, and quickly found in it not only a more satisfying way to read Job 4, but with it the entire Joban dialogue. This study is a revised version of my dissertation, completed in 2014 at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen under the title “You Terrify Me with Visions”: The Vision in Job 4 and Its Role in the Book. It was supervised by Dr. Nathan MacDonald and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Hermann Spieckermann, with Prof. Dr. Reinhard Gregor Kratz as the third member of the committee. It was written under the auspices of the Sofja-Kovalevskaja Research Group in Göttingen, “Unity and Diversity in Early Jewish Monotheisms,” funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Summaries of the argument were presented at the Old Testament Studies: Epistemologies and Methods Annual Meeting in Tartu, Estonia (Sept 15, 2013) and the Sofja-Kovalevskaja Symposium on Good and Evil in Early Judaism in Göttingen (Sept 24, 2013), I would especially like to thank Prof. Dr. Karl William Weyde for his response and stimulating conversation in Tartu. I am grateful to the editors of the series Forschungen zum Alten Testament for accepting the book for publication and doing everything possible to speed it through the process. The time I spent in Göttingen was uncommonly fruitful and fulfilling largely due to the friendship and collegiality I enjoyed in the SofjaKovalevskaja Research Group. Meeting weekly to discuss one another’s work with this diverse but close-knit group was a remarkable experience, and those conversations have colored every detail of this book. Nathan was everything a doctoral student could want in a supervisor and team leader, and so much more: His critical eye and compassionate spirit, hospitality and humor – even if we heard all his jokes a couple of times over by the end of the three years! – were a model for effective leadership. Beyond scholarship, he was a tireless advocate as we fought our way through the sometimes mystifying and maddening German bureaucratic process.

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Preface

If it were not enough to enjoy one supervisor of such caliber, however, I was honored to work with two. Hermann’s depth of knowledge and boundless enthusiasm were a constant encouragement to dig deeper and put forward the best work I could. He is a testament to the fact that world-class scholarship and genuine Christian faith are not only compatible but complementary. Even at the beginning when my German was terrible – and later, when it was only slightly better – he always went out of his way to welcome me into the department and guide me through the mysteries of the German educational system. Perhaps no one on either side of the Atlantic has worked harder to bridge the gap between German and Anglo-American biblical scholarship, and I can only hope that this book is some small tribute to his efforts. Other friends and colleagues who made Göttingen feel like home, sharpened my thinking, and broadened my perspectives on countless issues include Dr. Rob Barrett, Dr. Izaak de Hulster, Dr. Matt Lynch, Dr. Mette Bundved, Dr. (des.) Lydia Lee, Roberto Piani, Paul Michael Kurtz, Reed Carlson, Dr. (des.) Sonja Ammann, Dr. Harald Samuel, Dr. Jason Radine, Dr. T. Michael Law, Dr. Scott Jones, and many others. I will be forever grateful to all the wonderful friends at the Theological Stift in Göttingen, where I stayed during the final push to complete the manuscript. Thanks also to all my professors at Trinity Western University, especially Dr. Craig Broyles, who first sparked an interest in the book of Job and taught me to appreciate the dialogue and diversity of scripture, Dr. Jim Scott, who first insisted that I pursue graduate studies and later encouraged me to go to Germany, and Dr. Tony Cummins, whose outstanding supervision so well prepared me for doctoral work. Most of all I would like to thank my family. My dad, for first instilling a love for reading and a willingness to question and explore, and for reading most of what I have written ever since. My mom, who always encouraged us to go out and see the world, and long ago suggested that I become a Bible translator – I remember thinking “how boring to sit inside all day reading the Bible!” My grandparents, for never letting me forget that the Bible is not just an object of academic study, but the word of God. And especially my wife Andrea, who had no idea what she was getting into when she married me twelve years ago, but has been my rock ever since. Three countries and four kids later, I am so glad I could share this adventure with you. Ich liebe dich! This book is for you. Spokane, WA

Ken Brown

Table of Contents Table of Contents Table of Contents

Preface .......................................................................................................VII 

Table of Contents   Introduction ............................................................................................... 1  A. History of Research on the Role of the Vision in the Book ....................... 11  I. II. III. IV.

The Vision as a Central Element in Eliphaz’s Argument .................. 12  The Vision as Ambiguous or Subversive .......................................... 19  The Vision as a Late Addition .......................................................... 31  Is it Job’s Vision? ............................................................................. 39 

B. Need for Further Research ...................................................................... 51  C. Assumptions and Approach ..................................................................... 53  I. The Composition and Unity of Job ................................................... 53  II. “Intertextuality” and the Book of Job................................................ 59  D. Chapter Summary ................................................................................... 63 

Chapter 1: An Uncanny Vision  Subversive Imagery in 4:12–21 .......................................................... 65  A. Images of Revelation and Judgment in 4:12–16 ...................................... 69  I. Juxtaposed Imagery of Revelation and Judgment .............................. 70  II.  The Role of the “Spirit” and the Purpose of the Vision ..................... 79  B. Untrustworthy Servants and the Human Condition in 4:17–21................ 84  I.  A Subversive Vision ......................................................................... 85  II.  Indiscriminate Destruction in 4:19–21 .............................................. 93  C. Conclusions ............................................................................................ 98 

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Chapter 2: “Have You Stood in the Council of God?”  The Vision in the First Two Speech Cycles .................................... 99  A. The Style of the Vision and the Dispute between Job and His Friends ... 100  I.  Formal Characteristics of the Vision within the Dialogues ............. 100  II. The Vocabulary of the Vision within the Dialogues ........................ 103  III.  Corporeal Language in the Vision and the Dialogues ..................... 105  IV.  Theophany and Its Effects in the Vision and the Dialogues ............ 108  V.  The Language of 4:17–21 in the Dialogues ..................................... 113  B. The Friends’ Responses to the Vision .................................................... 116  I.  Allusions to the Vision in Eliphaz’s First Speech ........................... 116  II.  The Vision in Eliphaz’s Second Speech .......................................... 122  III.  The Vision in the Other Speeches of the Friends ............................ 129  C. Job’s Allusions to and Reuse of the Vision ............................................ 133  I.  The Vision in Job 6–7 ..................................................................... 133  II.  The Vision in Job 9–10 ................................................................... 138  III.  The Vision in the Later Speeches of Job ......................................... 142  D. Conclusions .......................................................................................... 145 

Chapter 3: “How Small a Whisper We Hear of Him”  The Vision in the Development of the Book................................. 147  A. The Vision in Job 3–5 ............................................................................ 150  I.  Is the Vision a Quotation of Job? .................................................... 151  II.  The Vision is the Original Conclusion to Job 3 ............................... 153  III.  Job 4–5 as a Response to the Vision ............................................... 161  IV.  Was The Vision Accidentally Displaced? ....................................... 167  B. The Vision in the Third Speech Cycle and the Elihu Speeches ............... 168  I.  The Vision in the Third Speech of Eliphaz ..................................... 169  II.  The Vision in the Elihu Speeches ................................................... 173  III.  The Vision in Job 25 ....................................................................... 181  IV.  The Vision in Job 26 ....................................................................... 185  V.  The Vision in the Final Speeches of Job ......................................... 188  C. The Vision in the Development of the Dialogues ................................... 195  I.  Is the Third Speech Cycle the Original End of the Dialogue? ......... 197  II.  Is the Third Speech Cycle a Secondary Addition? .......................... 201 

Table of Contents

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III.  Has the Third Speech Cycle Been Accidentally Disrupted? ............ 207  IV.  Intentional Displacement and the Reframing of the Vision ............. 214  D. Conclusions .......................................................................................... 223 

Chapter 4:“If It Is Not He, Then Who?”  The Meaning of the Vision in the Original Dialogue ................. 226  A. The Vision and Job’s Dispute with God ................................................ 230  I.  Reading the Vision with Job’s Eyes ................................................ 231  II.  The Vision as the Motivation for Job’s Complaint .......................... 236  III. Job’s Responses to the Vision Reconsidered ................................... 239  B. Revelation and Tradition in the Arguments of the Friends .................... 247  I.  Eliphaz’s Responses to the Vision and Use of Tradition ................. 249  II.  Revelation and Tradition in the Speeches of Bildad and Zophar ..... 260  III.  The Epistemology of the Friends and Job’s Critique ....................... 267  C. Conclusions .......................................................................................... 269 

Chapter 5: “Now My Eye Sees You”  The Vision, the Final Form, and the Early Reception of Job .... 272  A. The Vision in the Rest of the Book ......................................................... 273  I.  Elihu’s Response to the Vision ....................................................... 273  II.  The Vision and the Divine Speeches ............................................... 275  III.  Job’s Final Response ...................................................................... 278  IV.  The Prose Tale and the Vision ........................................................ 280  B. The Earliest Reception and the Final Form of Job ................................ 284  I.  The Vision and Job in the Earliest Reception History ..................... 285  II.  The Purposes and Effects of the Vision’s Reattribution .................. 293 

Conclusions ........................................................................................... 296 Bibliography.............................................................................................. 311  Indices ..................................................................................................... 327

Introduction Introduction Introduction [The gods] gave twisted words to the human race, They endowed them in perpetuity with lies and falsehood. The Babylonian Theodicy1

The Book of Job does not merely ask why the innocent suffer, how they should react, or whether God cares – though all of those questions are raised. More basically, it challenges the very link between human behavior and God’s rule of the cosmos: If the innocent can be destroyed and the wicked prosper, is there any reliable connection between sin and suffering? Various characters offer conflicting perspectives on this issue, and while the epilogue seems to restore the link broken by the prologue, the questions raised are not thereby eliminated, nor any unambiguous answers forthcoming. Amidst these diverse voices, however, two in particular are given added weight by their ties to a divine appearance. The second everyone knows: YHWH himself appears in a whirlwind and questions Job directly in chs. 38– 41. But the first theophany is more mysterious. In 4:12–21 we find a kind of revelatory vision, which first introduces the relation between human righteousness and fate into the dialogue. Unlike the divine speeches, however, the source of this vision is left unidentified, and the message it brings is more troubling than enlightening. Also unlike the divine speeches, this vision is not attributed to Job, but to Eliphaz, his otherwise optimistically traditional friend. This is surprising, as the vision itself is ambivalent and pessimistic:2 12

But to me a word is stolen, and my ear receives a whisper of it. 13 In troubling thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on mortals. 14 Dread has befallen me, and trembling, and made all my bones shake. 15 Then a spirit passes before my face, and the hair of my flesh bristles. 16 It stands still, but I cannot recognize its appearance. 1

The Babylonian Theodicy 279–80; trans. FOSTER, Before the Muses, 921. “The gods” added for clarity. 2 Except where otherwise noted, all translations are the author’s own, influenced by the NRSV and NJPS. Verse numbering follows the Hebrew, with English in brackets.

2

Introduction A form is in front of my eyes – silence, then I hear a voice: 17 Can a mortal be righteous before God, or can a man be pure before his maker?3 18 If he does not trust his servants, and to his messengers he imputes error, 19 how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust? They are crushed before a moth, 20 from morning to evening they are destroyed; they perish forever without notice. 21 Is not their cord pulled up within them? They die, and not in wisdom.4

The visionary account in 4:12–16 is unconventional, and its emphasis on the fear and confusion of the speaker are unprecedented in the speeches of Eliphaz and the other friends. Meanwhile, the message in 4:17–21 may at first seem like a “banal” affirmation of human lowliness before or compared to God, but on further inspection it raises more questions than it answers. The logical links between the challenge to human righteousness in 4:17, God’s mistrust of his servants in 4:18, and the earthly habitation of human beings in 4:19 are all left implicit – it is simply not said how human righteousness relates to human lowliness. In fact, the conclusion of the account does not refer to sin at all, but rather to sudden and violent death, again without clarifying its cause: Human beings are “crushed,” “destroyed,” “perish,” “pulled up” and “die.” Most surprising, this fate is applied to mortals without distinction, “those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust” (4:19a–b). In this way, the vision not only challenges any simple dichotomy between the innocent and the wicked, it concludes that all alike can be destroyed, as suddenly and finally as a collapsing tent or a crushed moth. The problem is that Eliphaz has just repudiated that very claim in 4:7–9: 7

Think now – who that was innocent ever perished [‫?]אבד‬ or where were the upright destroyed? 8 As I have seen, those who plow trouble and sow misfortune harvest it. 9 By the breath of God they perish [‫]אבד‬, and by the spirit of his anger they come to an end. 3 Or “Can a mortal be more righteous than God [‫]מאלוה‬, or a man be purer than his maker [‫ ”?]מעשׂהו‬Here and elsewhere, the book’s masculine language is retained where the possibility cannot be eliminated that the text alludes to Job specifically, and not simply to human beings in general. As COX, NETS, 669–670, observes in adopting a similar translation approach, the book’s frequent masculine singular forms often seem to mean “a person like Job,” and this is unduly obscured by the NRSV’s tendency to replace all such forms with plural expressions. Otherwise I will avoid gendered language wherever possible. 4 The details of this translation will be discussed in Chapter One.

Introduction

3

In 4:7–11 Eliphaz uses the term ‫אבד‬, “perish,” three times to make explicit and emphatic that the innocent do not perish, but the wicked surely do. Yet this is the same term that the vision goes on to apply to mortals without distinction in 4:20, directly contradicting Eliphaz’s dichotomy. That is, the very fate that Eliphaz implies never befalls the innocent in 4:7, is presented as a threat to all human beings in 4:20. Equally strange, right after the vision, Eliphaz returns to the same view as before, affirming in 5:2–5 that the fool is destroyed, but insisting in 5:8–27 that those who seek God will surely not die, but be preserved and blessed. Though 5:6–7 and 5:17 do seem to concede something to the vision’s perspective, allowing that all mortals may suffer “trouble,” both go on to reaffirm that God will preserve those who seek him. Neither there nor anywhere else does Eliphaz admit that the innocent could perish or be destroyed. He insists that the pious are blessed, as tradition and experience unanimously confirm (5:27). Nor is it only Eliphaz who maintains this position. All three of the friends emphasize an absolute contrast between the innocent and the wicked, affirming that only the latter are destroyed. For example, in 8:3–7 Bildad insists: 3

Does God distort justice? Or does the Almighty distort righteousness? 4 If your children sinned against him, then he gave them into the hand of their transgression. 5 If you seek God and make supplication to the Almighty, 6 if you are pure and upright, then surely he will protect you and establish your righteous habitation. 7 Though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very prosperous.

Here we find the same contrast between the fate of the wicked and the righteous, the same insistence that only the wicked perish, and the same conclusion that those who turn to God will be preserved. Even more explicitly than Eliphaz, Bildad directly ties this to ancestral tradition (8:8–10), and allows no exceptions (8:13, 20). Zophar draws the same contrast in ch. 11, and even when the second speech cycle focuses only on the negative side of that dichotomy, the friends still assume that the threat of destruction is reserved for the grossly wicked. It is not all mortals who perish, but only “he who does not know God” (18:21), or he who “stretched out his hand against God, and vaunts himself against the Almighty” (15:25). The positive side is again reasserted in Eliphaz’s final speech: “If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored, if you remove injustice from your tents” (22:23; cf. 22:15–30). By contrast, the vision reflects a fundamentally different view of the world and human nature. As Newsom put it:

4

Introduction Virtually everything else the friends say can be integrated into their dominant perspective on the world and the relation of good and evil in it…. But this claim seems to be drawn from a wholly different discourse.5

She emphasizes the radical otherness of God in the vision and its paraphrases,6 but the vision also obscures the very concept of a meaningful narrative to human life. The friends everywhere else assume that the future is open, such that any who live can still repent, and if they trust God, they will be restored: “Though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very prosperous” (8:7).7 By contrast, the vision leaves no room for such a future. Mortals alike are destroyed “from morning to evening” (4:20), collapsing all distinctions between righteous and wicked, past and future.8 In line with her broader approach to the generic tensions in Job, Newsom herself simply lets the two positions sit in juxtaposition, but the problem remains. If the vision really does contradict the friends’ position, why does it appear at the center of Eliphaz’s first speech, and what role does it play in the book as a whole?9 We will consider the various attempts to resolve those issues in a moment, but first there are additional questions pressing. Beyond its theological content, the vision also disrupts its context on a formal level. As Witte notes, 4:7–11 and 5:1–5 are closely parallel in both form and focus, each beginning with similar appeals to Job (‫ זכר־נא‬in 4:7 and ‫ קרא־נא‬in 5:1), followed by paired references to what Eliphaz himself has “seen” (‫ ;ראיתי‬4:8; 5:3), namely, that the wicked and the fool are destroyed (4:8–11; 5:2–5).10 The vision in 4:12–21 interrupts this parallel with a very different structure and content. Where the rest of the speech is dominated by second- and third-person discourse, 4:12–16 describes the speaker’s own fearful experience in the first

5

NEWSOM, Contest, 139; cf. 139–150. NEWSOM, Contest, 139–150. She also finds in these passages a kind of “divine loathing,” of which there is no hint elsewhere in the speeches of the friends, only in the speeches of Job (esp. 9:30–31; cf. 10:1–15). It is not clear, however, whether this is present in 4:12–21 itself, or only in 15:16 and 25:6, where they seem to respond to Job’s own comments in 9:30–31 and elsewhere. 7 NEWSOM, Contest, 101–5. 8 NEWSOM, Contest, 132–136, recognizes that this is a point of tension between Job and his friends, but seems to overlook the fact that the vision also emphasizes sudden destruction with no reference to hope or human choice. 9 She offers a brief appeal to Peter Berger’s concept of “masochistic theodicy,” in which the sufferer affirms their own nothingness in order to find their “ultimate bliss” in the supreme power of the other (NEWSOM, Contest, 143), but she admits that “the rhetoric of ecstatic surrender is not part of Eliphaz and Bildad’s statements.” Though she goes on to claim that nevertheless “the logic of their imagery is close to what Berger describes” (143), she offers no details, and makes no attempt to trace such a perspective elsewhere in the friends’ speeches, nor to reconcile it with their other claims. 10 WITTE, Leiden, 72, followed by NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, 18, 20–21. 6

Introduction

5

person.11 The poetic structure of the vision also diverges from the consistent bi-cola that mark the rest of chs. 4–5.12 Not only is there a tri-colon in 4:19, but 4:16 concludes the first half of the vision with a complex line unparalleled anywhere else in the friends’ speeches: “It stands still, but I cannot recognize its appearance. A form is in front of my eyes – silence, then I hear a voice.”13 The visionary’s self-description is also at odds with Eliphaz’s claims elsewhere. The emphasis on dread and confusion in 4:12–16 is especially noteworthy. Other visions also have such an effect, especially in late texts such as Daniel 8 and 10, but within Job it is surprising to find such a depiction on the lips of Eliphaz, who elsewhere only refers to the fear and confusion of Job or the wicked.14 None of the friends give any other hint that they themselves are uncertain or afraid. Similarly, the repeated references to the visionary’s body (“my ear” in 4:12, “my bones” in 4:14, “my face” and “my flesh” in 4:15 and “my eyes” in 4:16) are without precedent in the speeches of the friends, who again use such body imagery almost exclusively of Job and the wicked, never to describe themselves.15 This uncertain, stuttering account simply does not sound like the same Eliphaz who speaks so confidently and consistently in the rest of the book. Yet the problem is not just that the vision fits uncomfortably among Eliphaz’s speeches, but that it fits much better in Job’s. Unlike the friends, Job regularly describes his own terror and confusion,16 speaks in the first person at length,17 and constantly refers to his own body, using each of the expressions “my ear(s),” “my bones,” “my face,” “my flesh,” and “my eye(s)” multiple times.18 Theologically as well, the message of the vision is closer to Job’s perspective than Eliphaz’s, and plays a much more consistent role in 11 Even the few other places where Eliphaz speaks in the first-person (4:7; 5:3, 8; cf. 15:17) are only introductory, leading directly back to third-person description of what others have done or should do. Nowhere else does Eliphaz (or any of the friends) describe something that has happened to him personally, as in 4:12–16. 12 The only exception is the problematic 5:5, which appears to be a tri-colon in its present form, but also seems to be corrupt; cf. CLINES, Job, 1.115–16 for the range of options. 13 Cf. COTTER, Job 4–5, 176–77. 14 E.g. 4:5–6; 5:21; 15:21–24; 22:10; cf. 18:11–14; 20:25. 15 Cf. e.g. 11:15, 20; 15:12, 15, 21, 27; 20:11; 22:26. 16 E.g. 3:25; 7:14; 9:28, 34–35; 13:21, 25; 23:15–16; 31:23. 17 Just taking his first two speeches, Job speaks in extended first-person discourse in 3:11–13, 24–26; 6:2–4, 8–13, 22–24, 28–30; 7:3–8, 11–16, 19–21. 18 Job refers to “my ear” in 13:1 (and cf. 42:5); “my bones” in 7:15; 19:20; 30:17, 30; cf. 10:11; “my face/before me” in 3:24; 9:27; 16:8, 14, 16; 23:17; 29:24; 30:10, 11; “my flesh” in 6:12; 7:5; 13:14; 19:20, 22, 26; 21:6; cf. 10:11; and “my eye(s)” in 3:10; 7:7, 13:1; 16:20, 17:2, 7; 19:27; 31:1, 7; 42:5. Apart from Elihu’s one reference each to “my ear” (33:8) and “before me” (33:5), the other 32 occurrences of these expressions all appear in Job’s speeches. The friends do not use any of them even once.

6

Introduction

Job’s subsequent speeches than in those of any of the friends. Newsom acknowledges that “Job singles out this and only this motif from the friends’ speeches as a claim with which he can agree (9:2),” and does not discuss the vision in her chapter on the friends, but rather in her chapter on Job’s speeches.19 In 9:2 Job responds to Bildad’s insistence that only the wicked are destroyed by paraphrasing 4:17a: “Truly I know that this is so; how then can a mortal be righteous with God?” This forms the introduction for the whole speech that follows, with its insistence that a mortal cannot “be righteous with God,” because God will not give them a fair hearing (9:3–4, 14–20, 28– 35).20 As Job puts it in 9:28–31, also using explicit body imagery: 28

I fear all my suffering; I know that you [=God] will not acquit me. 29 I will be condemned; why then should I toil in vain? 30 If I wash myself with soap and purify my hands with lye, 31 then you plunge me into the pit, and my own clothes abhor me.

This admits the vision’s point that God does not hold any righteous, but turns it into an accusation of divine injustice. Elsewhere in the speech, Job also accuses God of unilateral destruction comparable to that depicted in 4:19–21. For instance, in 9:20–22 he complains: 20

Though I am righteous, my own mouth would condemn me. I am blameless, but he proves me perverse. 21 I am blameless; I do not know myself; I loathe my life. 22 It is all one; therefore I say, he destroys both the blameless and the wicked.

Yet it is not just in ch. 9 that Job draws on the vision’s imagery. In 7:14 he explicitly complains that “you [=God] frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions [‫]חזינות‬.” Commentators typically assume that this refers to mere nightmares, but the vocabulary and imagery link this to 4:13–14. In particular, the term ‫ חזינות‬parallels 4:13, and is always associated with revelation

19

NEWSOM, Contest, 143, cf. 138–150. “Job’s appropriation of Eliphaz’s words [in 9:2] may have its irony, but it is also deeply sincere. Eliphaz has given Job the truth he needs to understand his situation – that the source of the violence to which humans are subject is to be found in the radical difference between the divine and the human” (143). 20 NEWSOM, Contest, 143. KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 206–7, also notes that 9:2 serves as a heading and focal point for the whole speech.

Introduction

7

outside of Job.21 Job ties this to fear in the same way that 4:14 did, and 7:13 implies the same sleeplessness affirmed in 4:13. That Job is alluding to the vision here is supported by the context, which emphasizes both the shortness of human life (7:1–10, 16, 21; cf. 4:19–21) and the inescapability of God’s judgment (7:17–21; cf. 4:17).22 The passage concludes: “But why do you not pardon my transgressions and pass over my iniquity? For now I will lie in the dust; you will search for me, but I will not be” (7:21). Job even returns to this theme in ch. 14, describing the weak and shortlived nature of human life (14:1–12), wishing that God would forgive and relent (14:13–17), but concluding that God will not (14:18–22): 19b

you [=God] destroy [‫ ;אבד‬Hiph] the hope of a mortal. You prevail forever [‫ ]לנצח‬against him, and he passes away; you change his face, and send him away. 21 His children are honored, and he does not know; they are humbled, and he does not perceive it. 20

As in chs. 7 and 9, this seems to be a direct reaffirmation of the vision’s claim that mortals “perish forever [‫ ]לנצח אבד‬without notice” (4:20), here turned into an accusation of God. Thus, outside of 4:12–21 itself, the whole first speech cycle seems to link Job’s views to the vision, while the friends are united in their opposition to its perspective. Where Eliphaz and his friends deny the universal condemnation affirmed in the vision, Job repeatedly emphasizes it, building directly on its images of inescapable judgment and human frailty. Though Job goes beyond the vision to insist that the impossibility of human righteousness and the inescapability of destruction are God’s fault, the assumption is the same: that there is no meaningful hope to be placed in human righteousness, for all alike can suddenly perish. What then of Eliphaz’s second speech, where he directly paraphrases 4:17–19 in 15:14–16? Does this not prove that Eliphaz also accepts the universal sin of humankind? 14

What is a mortal, that he can be clean, one born of a woman that he can be righteous? 15 If he does not trust his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight; 16 how much less one who is abhorrent and corrupt, a man who drinks injustice like water!

As will be shown in detail later, the overall structure of 15:14–16 plainly reflects 4:17–19, but the question in 15:14 is now structured according to 21 The expression in both texts is ‫מחזינות‬, though in 4:13 it is generally translated “from visions,” but in 7:14 “with visions.” Parallel discussed by, e.g., SMITH, Vision, 456, GREENSTEIN, Extent, 248 [Hebrew]. ‫ חזיון‬occurs only five times outside of Job, always associated with divine speech (2 Sam 7:17; Isa 22:1, 5; Joel 3:1[2:28]; Zech 13:4). 22 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 250–51. J. GRAY, Job, 168.

8

Introduction

7:17, reproducing the expression ‫מה־אנושׁ כי…וכי‬, “What is a mortal, that you make so much of him, that you set your heart on him?”23 Eliphaz’s entire paraphrase of 4:17–19 begins with this quotation from Job’s reflection on the vision in 7:13–21, and 15:15–16 then goes on to draw additional expressions from Job’s complaints in 14:1 (“one born of a woman”) and 9:30–31 (“purify” and “abhorrent”).24 Even without recognizing those literary links, Tur-Sinai noted nearly a century ago that 15:12–13 can be read as an explicit citation formula:25 12

Why does your heart carry you away, and why do your eyes flash, 13 so that you turn your spirit against God, and utter words from your mouth?

He notes that “utter words from your mouth” directly parallels a citation formula used by Bildad to introduce a proverb in 8:10.26 The use of the same expression to refer to Job’s words therefore implies that Eliphaz attributes to Job the following quotation, which blends 4:17–19 with expressions from Job’s subsequent speeches. Eliphaz even makes his procedure explicit in 15:6, “Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; your own lips testify against you.”27 This suggests that 15:14–16 is not Eliphaz’s reaffirmation of his own view, but a caricature of Job’s speeches, among which he apparently includes the vision. Nor is this an isolated instance. Zophar’s second speech also combines a cluster of critical allusions to the vision with expressions drawn from Job’s speeches, in another warning that the wicked are destroyed.28 Zophar concludes that “the wicked” will “perish forever” (‫ ;לנצח יאבד‬20:7; from 4:20; cf. 14:19–20), and “Like a dream he flies away, and they do not find him; he is 23

The expression occurs elsewhere only in Ps 8:5[4], which Job 7:17 seems to parody (cf. most recently, KYNES, My Psalm, 63–79). 24 GINSBERG, Patient, 102, notes that the phrase “born of a woman” (‫ )ילוד אשׁה‬in 15:14b is found elsewhere in Job only in 14:1a and the further paraphrase of the vision in 25:4b. Similarly, HABEL, Job, 256, notes that ‫”( זכך‬be pure”) occurs in Job only in 9:30, 15:15 and its paraphrase in 25:5, and elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible only in Lam 4:7. ‫“( תעב‬be abhorrent” in 15:16) is somewhat more common, occurring 22 times in the Hebrew Bible, but its only other occurrences in the book are on the lips of Job himself (9:31; 19:19; 30:10). 25 TORCZYNER (=TUR-SINAI), Hiob, 96–98; TUR-SINAI, Job, 250–251; followed by, e.g., GINSBERG, Patient, 102; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 252–256. 26 TORCZYNER, Hiob, 97. Both Eliphaz and Bildad refer to uttering (‫ ;יצא‬Hiph) “words” (‫ מלין‬or ‫)מלים‬, “from” (‫ )מן‬a body part, the only difference being that Eliphaz refers explicitly to “your mouth,” while Bildad spoke of “their hearts.” 27 This is followed by a direct challenge to Job’s claims to exclusive divine knowledge in 15:7–8, which is contrasted with the wisdom of the ancestors in 15:9–11. 28 Noted by SMITH, Vision, 456; discussed by HOLBERT, Skies, 171–79, esp. 174–75.

Introduction

9

chased away like a vision of the night” (20:8; cf. 4:13; 7:14).29 Holbert recognizes that this critiques the vision, and concludes that “Eliphaz is mocked as clearly as Job here.”30 But that is unlikely, given that Zophar’s entire argument parallels Eliphaz’s own insistence that the wicked alone perish. Like Eliphaz, therefore, Zophar seems to dismiss the vision’s message, and associates its imagery with Job and the wicked. The same perspective is also evident in the friends’ speeches in chs. 8, 11, 18 and 22, with varying nuances, and even Elihu seems to attribute quotations of 4:17 to Job in 32:2 and 35:2, and apparently describes Job’s own “vision” with a verbatim quotation from 4:13 in 33:15, though Elihu seems to reinterpret rather than reject the vision (cf. 33:12–17). But there is one text that violates this pattern. In 25:4–6 Bildad asks: 4

How then can a mortal be righteous with God? and how can one born of a woman be clean? 5 If even the moon does not shine, and the stars are not pure in his sight; 6 how much less a mortal, who is a maggot, and a human being, who is a worm!

The overall structure resembles 4:17–19 and 15:14–16, but it lacks any allusion to a visionary context and quotes directly from 9:2 (in 25:4) without any overt critique.31 Interpretation is complicated by the abbreviated nature of Bildad’s speech and its uncertain textual history,32 but nothing in this chapter reflects the critical attitude toward the vision seen in the earlier speeches of the friends. Instead, it reinterprets 4:17–19 as a straightforward affirmation of God’s supremacy (cf. 25:2–3), eliminating the references to angelic and human sin, as well as any allusion to destruction, indiscriminate or otherwise. This is a significant divergence, shifting the vision closer to the perspective of the friends by dropping its most subversive elements. 29 “Vision of the night” (‫ )חזיון לילה‬parallels 4:13, while both the term “a vision” (‫)חזיון‬ and its parallel “a dream” (‫ )חלום‬were used by Job in 7:14 to describe his own experience. ‫ חלום‬occurs in Job only in 7:14, 20:8 and 33:15. Cf. also the references to “my thoughts” and “spirit” in 20:2–3, paralleling 4:13, 15. 30 HOLBERT, Skies, 175. 31 Just as 15:14–16 begins with a paraphrase of 7:17, so 25:4 begins with a verbatim quotation of 9:2a, but unlike in ch. 15, there are no indications of critique in ch. 25. The rest of 25:4b–6 most closely parallels 15:14–16, with its own idiosyncrasies: In 25:5 Bildad substitutes “the moon” and “the stars” for “his holy ones” and “the heavens” in 15:15, but otherwise reflects the same structure and exactly parallels the final clause ‫לא־זכו בעיניו‬. Bildad also derives vocabulary from Job’s speeches in 25:6, particularly the term “maggot” (‫)רמה‬, which occurs only in Job’s own speeches (7:5; 17:14; 21:26; 24:20), including in a depiction of the state in which God has left him (7:5). 32 Most often, 25:2–6 is thought to have originally been combined with 26:5–14, as they are closely related in form and content (e.g. DHORME, Job, xlvii-xlviii, 368–376; POPE, Job, 180–86; HABEL, Job, 364–375; CLINES, Job, 2.618–641; J. GRAY, Job, 325–332).

10

Introduction

No less surprising, however, is that this is followed in ch. 26 by a speech of Job which seems to accept the same shift. Here Job also affirms God’s absolute supremacy, but unlike in chs. 7 and 9, this is described with awe rather than fear and despair. The whole speech closes with what could be taken as a dismissal of the vision: “Behold, these are the outskirts of his ways; and what a whisper of a word [‫ ]שׁמץ דבר‬do we hear of him! But who can understand the thunder of his might?” (26:14). ‫ שׁמץ‬and ‫ דבר‬were used in 4:12 to introduce the vision, and the former appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible.33 That it is used here to admit that what little we know of God is unimportant compared to his power is a shift no less radical than that seen in Bildad’s speech, effectively reversing Job’s earlier accusations of injustice.34 Similarly, in 27:13–23 Job is attributed a direct affirmation of the very dichotomy between the wicked and the righteous that the friends elsewhere maintain, but Job and the vision have challenged. Finally, alongside these tensions inherent to the vision’s role in the book as a whole, we must also account for the tensions internal to the vision itself. A number of scholars have noted the unconventional nature of the vision, combining allusions to various prophetic traditions with more troubling allusions to God’s judgment. In particular, Harding and Hamori note links between the vision (esp. 4:12–16) and traditions of a “spirit of falsehood,” which God sends in judgment against the wicked (e.g. 1 Kgs 22:19–23).35 This is seen especially in the references to a “stolen” word (Job 4:12), “deep sleep” (4:13), “dread” (4:14), and the unidentified “spirit” (4:15–16). They conclude that these allusions serve to undermine Eliphaz’s position, and anticipate his condemnation in the epilogue (42:7–10).36 But can this really be linked to the epilogue, and if this were indeed Eliphaz’s vision, why do its form, message and later allusions link it to Job? None of those who recognize the links between the vision and Job’s speeches discuss the ambiguous imagery in 4:12– 16, but if the vision does imply the condemnation of its recipient, that casts a different light on Job’s use of it than has generally been assumed. In short, the vision’s role in the book is marked by deep tensions on several levels:

33

Noted by SEOW, Job, 399. KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 57–58 n. 3, recognizes this. She concludes that chs. 25–26 are from a later hand than the vision and its other reflections in the dialogues (cf. also 60– 61, 64). 35 HARDING, Spirit, 161–65; HAMORI, Spirit, 15–30; cf. e.g. 1 Kgs 22:19–23; 1 Sam 16:14–23; 18:10–12; 19:9–10; Judg 9:23–24; 2 Kgs 19:7 (//Isa 37:7); Isa 19:13–14. 36 HAMORI, Spirit, 24–25; HARDING, Spirit, 161–65; the latter notes that Zedekiah ben Chenaanah in 1 Kgs 22, “believes he has received an authentic revelation,” but he is deceived (161), and the same may be implied regarding Eliphaz in Job (165). 34

A. History of Research

11

(1) The vision itself is not just mysterious and uncanny, but deliberately ambiguous and subversive. (2) Despite its current position, the vision fits oddly in the middle of Eliphaz’s speech, and may even be directly contradicted by its immediate context. (3) The rest of chapters 3–22 consistently treat the ideas first introduced in the vision as a reflection of Job’s views, not Eliphaz’s, and even Elihu assumes this. (4) Late portions of the book (esp. chs. 25–27 and 32–35) treat the vision very differently than earlier portions did.

As we will now see, each of these issues have been individually recognized and addressed by different scholars, but no one has yet accounted for all of them together.

A. History of Research on the Role of the Vision in the Book A. History of Research

Given the vast literature on the vision in Job 4, in commentaries, broader thematic studies, and numerous articles devoted to the passage itself, it is surprising that there has never been a monograph on the subject. The fullest account is Notter’s 2004 study on dreams and visions in Job, but her book is only 100 pages long, of which about half is devoted to 4:12–17.37 Cotter’s 1992 monograph on Job 4–5, and Scherer’s 2008 monograph on the Eliphaz speeches both also discuss the vision at some length, but their primary interests lie elsewhere.38 Perhaps because of this, scholarship on the vision is not only extensive but extremely diverse, and various approaches have developed in parallel, with little direct dialogue between them. It will therefore be helpful to offer a relatively full account of the history of research, though only representative studies can be discussed.39 We will trace four broad approaches, the first pair of which are essentially synchronic, the second essentially diachronic: (1) Those who see the vision as a straightforward element in Eliphaz’s argument, (2) those who sense some degree of ambiguity or subversion in the vision, (3) those who question whether the vision was an original part of the book at all, and (4) those who suggest that the vision was originally attributed to Job, not Eliphaz.40 We will see that each of these approaches recognizes something important about the vision’s role in the book that the others tend to overlook, while a viable synthesis has yet to appear.

37

NOTTER, Traumverständnis, esp. 14–57. COTTER, Job 4–5, esp. 176–199; SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, esp. 40–59; Scherer also discusses 15:14–16 and 25:4–6 (89–100), but not the other allusions to the vision. 39 The history of research in NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 47–50, summarized on 56, is only 3 pages, and no fuller accounting has been published. 40 We begin with the modern period. The earliest reception history of the vision and the book as a whole will be discussed in Chapter Five below. 38

12

Introduction

I. The Vision as a Central Element in Eliphaz’s Argument By far the most common approach in early modern commentaries, still regularly affirmed up to the present, is to treat the vision as the unproblematic center of Eliphaz’s speech. Up until World War I, the vision was most often seen as a thoroughly orthodox affirmation of the universality of human sin and suffering.41 There was rarely any concern expressed about its relation to the rest of the book.42 It is perhaps not surprising that very conservative scholars would take such a line, such as the 1871 commentary by Coleman, who describes the vision as a genuine revelation “vouchsafed to Eliphaz to humble his soul in the dust, and to teach him, that before the omniscient heart-searching Creator, and in His sight, no man living can be justified.”43 If there is a tension between the vision and its context, Coleman implies, it is only because the vision is true, while the arguments in 4:2–11 and 5:1–27 are based on “the erroneous axiom, that the righteous are UNIVERSALLY exempt from the judgments judiciously inflicted in time upon the wicked.”44 Yet even Delitzsch’s 1902 commentary, which describes Job’s dialogue as “das Hohelied des Pessimismus,”45 still reads the vision as a straightforward denial that human beings can be righteous, introduced by Eliphaz to dismiss Job’s complaint that God ignores human righteousness.46 Unlike Coleman and most 41 E.g. COLEMAN, Job, 14–17; DILLMANN, Hiob [4th Ed.], 32–40; BUDDE, Hiob, 19–21; E.C.S. GIBSON, Job, 21–23; DUHM, Hiob, 27–30; DELITZSCH, Hiob, 23, 92. 42 E.g. BUDDE, Hiob, 78, says little more than that 15:14–16 is a “blosse Variante von 4:17–19” (much the same on 25:4–6; cf. 142). DELITZSCH, Hiob, 92, mentions the parallels between 4:17, 15:14 and 25:4 in passing, and says of 15:14–16 little more than that it repeats 4:17–19 (48 nn. a-b). E.C.S. GIBSON, Job, 76, says only that 15:14–16 “practically” repeats 4:17–19, except that it puts more stress on human corruption instead of mere frailty, while 25:4–6 imitates Eliphaz (137). DILLMANN, Hiob [4th Ed.], 133–34, has a bit more to say, admitting a parallel between 15:14–16 and Job’s speeches (14:1–4), but he still treats 15:14–16 as a straightforward reaffirmation of Eliphaz’s views (cf. also 222–23 on 25:4–6). 43 COLEMAN, Job, 17. This is not much different from his summary of the message of the whole book: “Job’s afflictions, visited upon him by Satanic agency, were graciously overruled to humble his soul in the dust by conviction of sin, original and actual… unto his humiliation and edification” (xviii). Yet if this implies that the vision is a clear statement of the central theme of the book, as Coleman understands it, he displays no interest at all in the vision’s influence on the remainder of the dialogues, failing to even acknowledge the paraphrases of 4:17–19 in 9:2, 15:14–16 or 25:4–6 (cf. 29, 42, 66). 44 COLEMAN, Job, 13, emphasis original. The vision is God’s response to both Job and Eliphaz (17). 45 DELITZSCH, Hiob, 17, 92. This brief commentary was published the same year that Delitzsch gave the first of his (in)famous “Babel und Bibel” lectures. Cf. ARNOLD AND WEISBERG, Centennial Review, 441–457. 46 DELITZSCH, Hiob, 91–92, cf. 23. But if that were Eliphaz’s point, why does the vision itself conclude that mortals in general suddenly perish? The vision seems rather to support Job’s complaint than to challenge it.

A. History of Research

13

others, Delitzsch implies that the view advanced by 4:12–21 is not embraced by the book as a whole,47 but he shows no hesitation about its relation to the friends’ views elsewhere. He never asks how Eliphaz could simultaneously urge Job to trust that the innocent never perish (4:6–7), and affirm that all alike perish because none can be innocent (4:17–21). The fullest early attempt to coordinate the vision with Eliphaz’s views was by Dillmann (1891; 4th ed.), who describes 4:12–5:7 as the centerpiece of the speech.48 He acknowledges that 4:2–11 serves to remind Job to trust to his piety, because “a pious person has never perished in misfortune, rather – in his experience – only the guilty fall prey to sure and sudden downfall.”49 Yet when he summarizes 4:12–5:7 he avoids such stark language, describing the fate of humanity merely as “suffering” (Leiden), despite the fact that the same term ‫אבד‬, “to perish,” is used in both 4:7–11 and 4:20: “[Eliphaz then] offers (2) his main point, which was secured to him through higher revelation… that before God no human is pure and righteous, therefore also none can claim to be spared from suffering.”50 Apparently to avoid the conclusion that the downfall described in 4:19–21 is just as “sure and sudden” as that depicted 4:8–11, Dillmann attributes a modal sense to the imperfect verbs in 4:19–21, indicating “potential” rather than fact.51 He offers no justification for that conclusion, however, and even he admits that 4:19–21 attributes the threat of sudden destruction to all human beings, not merely the wicked.52 More recently, Dillmann’s proposal has been defended at greater length by Clines (1989), whose discussion is illuminating. He admits that if read with 47

DELITZSCH, Hiob, 91–92. DILLMANN, Hiob, esp. 33, cf. 32–49. He takes 4:12–21 as a legitimate revelation – not on the same level as those granted to the prophets, to be sure, but comparable to the visions in Genesis: “[sie ist] nicht eine klare helle profetische Offenbarung durch den göttlichen Geist, sondern eine niedere in einem nächtliche Gesicht, wie das dem patriarchalischen Zeitalter und aussertheokratischen Leuten ziemt” (36; cf. 33, 40). 49 DILLMANN, Hiob, 34, “als Hoffnungsgrund gibt er ihm zu bedenken, dass ein Frommer noch nie im Unglück umgekommen sei, vielmehr, nach seiner Erfahrung, nur die Schuldigen dem sicheren u. plötzlichen Untergang anheimgegeben werden” (cf. also 32). 50 DILLMANN, Hiob, 33, “hält er ihm 2) seinen Hauptsatz, der ihm durch höhere Offenbarung feststeht,… entgegen, den Satz, dass vor Gott kein Mensch rein u. gerecht sei, darum auch Keiner von Leiden verschont zu werden Anspruch habe.” He goes on: “unmuthige Klagen aber thöricht [sic.], sündhaft u. schwerster Strafe verfallen seien” (33; cf. also 42). 51 DILLMANN, Hiob [4th Ed.], 39. 52 DILLMANN, Hiob [4th Ed.], 39; also emphasized by BUDDE, Hiob, 21. Despite this, Dillmann suggests that because human beings are fragile and earthly, they are unable to resist sin: “als Gebrechliche und Schwache vermögen sie noch viel weniger, als die Himmlischen, der Sünde zu widerstehn [sic]” (39). This reads more into 4:19–21 than is justified, given that sin is not even explicitly mentioned, but even if it were correct it would still be at odds with 4:6–7, which assumes that human righteousness is indeed possible. 48

14

Introduction

an indicative sense, 4:20–21 would “destroy the premise from which he [=Eliphaz] began… namely that humankind is divided into two camps, the righteous and the wicked (4.7–8).”53 Clines therefore also affirms that the verbs must indicate a possibility rather than a fact,54 and like Dillmann he concludes that 4:17–21 refers to nothing more than “suffering”: Though the righteous will never “perish” in the sense of being cut off in their prime, nevertheless they do suffer – as Job is witness. Eliphaz elaborately impresses upon Job that the cause of such – temporary – suffering lies not in Job alone: all created beings, even heavenly creatures, share in imperfection.55

Such a distinction is without basis in the text. Not only is the exact same term ‫ אבד‬used in both 4:20 and throughout 4:7–11, but the other terms used to describe the fate of mortals in 4:19–21 also imply no “temporary” or common “suffering,” but total destruction: Mortals are “crushed,” “destroyed,” “perish” and “die.”56 Thus, even if Dillmann and Clines’ modal reading is accepted, the fact that such a threat is set over all those “who dwell in houses of clay” remains in fundamental contradiction to Eliphaz’s dichotomy in 4:7–11. The vision need not imply that all mortals actually “perish forever,” but the text is explicit that any mortal can do so – suddenly and without warning. There is nothing within 4:17–21 that implies or allows that such a fate is reserved for the wicked alone, except insofar as the entire human race is deemed unrighteous. The point, as Job well recognizes in subsequent speeches, is that even those most righteous can meet sudden and overwhelming disaster. Piety is no assurance of survival. Despite such contradictions, the traditional reading remains popular to the present day. German commentaries such as those by Szczygiel (1931), Baumgärtel (1933), Hertzberg (1951), Weiser (1963) Horst (3rd Ed. 1974), de Wilde (1981), Groß (1986) and Ebach (1996) all continue to portray the vision as a direct reflection of Eliphaz’s viewpoint, and see its point as an affirmation of universal human sin.57 Of these, Ebach is one of the few to acknowledge the tension between the vision and its context, but he concludes 53

CLINES, Verb Modality, 749. CLINES, Verb Modality, 750–51; followed by HABEL, Job, 116. Neither acknowledges that this reading was anticipated by Dillmann. 55 CLINES, Job, 1.128. Clines himself considers the vision to be ambiguous and ironic within the book, representing one of the several new interpretive approaches that appeared after World War I, discussed in the next section. 56 HARTLEY, Job, 114–15, notes the “brutal and total” nature of the destruction in view, though he also fails to acknowledge the tension with 4:7–11. 57 SZCZYGIEL, Hiob, 52–54; BAUMGÄRTEL, Hiobdialog, 13–15; HERTZBERG, Hiob, 28– 31; WEISER, Hiob, 49–50; HORST, Hiob, 63, 71–79, 90–91; DE WILDE, Hiob, 105–110 (though he deletes 4:16b as a gloss, moves 5:5b to follow 4:19c, and 5:1 to precede 5:8, he still sees the vision as Eliphaz’s straightforward affirmation of universal sin); GROSS, Hiob, 24–25; EBACH, Streiten, 1.56–66. 54

A. History of Research

15

that the perspectives in 4:7–11 and 4:17–21 are complementary. In his view, “the lowliness of humanity is the reason for the evil that befalls them,”58 but the act-consequence-nexus (Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang) is still in effect, so as long as Job accepts his lowliness and seeks God, he will surely be restored.59 This harmonization simply ignores the sudden destruction in 4:19– 21, which Ebach hardly discusses.60 Scherer (2008) takes a similar approach. He admits that the vision stands in tension with the Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang that Eliphaz defends in the surrounding text,61 but he denies that it is intended ironically or that it can be excised from the speech.62 He notes that ‫ אבד‬is used in 4:7–11 exclusively of the wicked, and in 4:20 of all human beings, but asserts that “Nevertheless Eliphaz deduces from this a clear guiding principle for Job.”63 He further claims that 4:12–21 is coordinated with 4:2–11 by the use of ‫ דבר‬in 4:2 and 4:12, and suggests that the Niedrigkeitsmotif (lowliness-motif) in 4:17–21 is also assumed by 5:1–16, and therefore forms the heart of the speech.64 The latter conclusion is especially problematic. He concludes that “The pessimistic anthropology from 4:19–21 fits in this context [5:3–5] excellently insofar as the emphasis on the lowliness of humanity definitively precludes every human sense of entitlement and every fanatical charge against the power of God.”65 But 5:3–5 speaks only of the destruction of the fool, certainly not that of all human beings, and so cannot be taken to reflect any kind of a pessimistic attitude on Eliphaz’s part, particularly when 5:8–27 goes on to emphasize the assurance of restoration for those who seek God. Scherer also 58 EBACH, Streiten, 1.57–58, “Die Niedrigkeit des Menschen ist der Grund des Unheils, von dem er betroffen wird.” 59 EBACH, Streiten, 1.59. 60 Despite discussing the vision for five pages, he devotes only one sentence to 4:19–21: “Zermahlener Staub, zerdrückte Motten, herausgerissene Zeltpflöcke – mit diesen Bildern zeichnet Elifas den Charakter des Menschenlebens. Und solch ein Mensch will Gott herausfordern?” (EBACH, Streiten, 1.66). 61 SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 53, 58. 62 SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 40, 49, 52–58. He does, however, accept that the reuse of this motif in 25:4–6 is a secondary addition to the book (95–100). 63 SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 54, “Trotzdem leitet Eliphaz daraus eine klare Handlungsmaxime für Hiob ab.” Scherer does not clarify what that “Handlungsmaxime” is, but he seems to see it as an appeal to humility (cf. 55, 57–58, 66–67). He accepts Clines’ assertion that Eliphaz believes not “that the righteous never suffer, but that they never wholly ‘perish’” (CLINES, Job, 1.124, quoted by SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 37). How this can be reconciled with 4:19–21 is never explained. 64 SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 54–58. 65 SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 55, “Die pessimistische Anthropologie aus 4,19–21 passt insofern ausgezeichnet in diesen Kontext, als die Betonung der Niedrigkeit des Menschen jedes menschliche Anspruchsdenken und jedes fanatische Anrennen gegen die Macht Gottes definitive ausschließt.”

16

Introduction

attempts to read 5:8–16 as a reflection of the Niedrigkeitsmotif, even though he admits that it serves to encourage Job to trust God.66 But the emphasis on the power of God in 5:8–16 is not at all tied to a pessimistic view of humanity as a whole, but instead returns to the clear dichotomy spelled out in 4:2–11. Indeed, 5:11–16 contrasts the salvation of the “lowly” with the destruction of the crafty: 11

he [=God] sets the lowly on high, and mourners are lifted to safety. 12 He frustrates the plans of the cunning, and their hands have no success. 13 He catches the wise in their cunning; and the counsel of the crooked goes awry. 14 By day they meet darkness, and at midday they grope as at night. 15 But he delivers the needy from the sword of their mouth, from the hand of the strong. 16 So there is hope for the poor, and injustice shuts its mouth.

Far from accepting the pessimistic view of 4:19–21, in which all human beings are threatened with sudden destruction due to their lowliness, Eliphaz responds that the lowly are raised up and saved, while the wicked alone are destroyed. In sharp contrast to the vision, here the lowly have hope and find justice, as 5:17–27 will further emphasize. Therefore, despite how commonly it has been accepted that the vision forms the centerpiece of Eliphaz’s theology, such a view can only be maintained by unduly harmonizing what is in fact a fundamental contradiction inherent to the speech as we have it. The assumption that the vision is fully in line with Eliphaz’s view is also found in many English-language commentaries, including Driver and Gray (1921), Terrien (1954), Rowley (1970), Gordis (1978), Hartley (1988), Balentine (2006), and Longman (2012), as well as Dhorme (French original: 1926; English translation 1967).67 For instance, Longman acknowledges that the description of the vision in 4:12–16 is “disquieting,”68 and wonders whether the expression of divine mistrust in 4:18 may also apply to the “spirit” that brings the vision in 4:15,69 but he does not question the point or placement of the vision: “The claim is that no one can be righteous before God. And if no 66

SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 56–57. DRIVER AND GRAY, Job, 44–48; TERRIEN, Job, 938–942, cf. 894–96; ROWLEY, Job, 53–57; 113–16; GORDIS, Job, 519, HARTLEY, Job, 109–115; BALENTINE, Job, 105–116; LONGMAN, Job, 119–121; DHORME, Job, 48–57. See also the 2010 article by WHITEKETTLE, Question, 445–448, which interprets 4:17 on the assumption that the vision corresponds to Eliphaz’s views. 68 LONGMAN, Job, 119. 69 LONGMAN, Job, 120. 67

A. History of Research

17

one can be perfectly righteous, then Job is not, and he deserves the suffering that is coming his way.”70 Despite the thorough destruction described in 4:19–21,71 he never asks how this is to be reconciled with Eliphaz’s “most basic argument against Job: The innocent do not suffer, but the wicked perish.”72 The closest he comes to addressing this tension is when he asks whether the affirmation of Job’s innocence in 4:6 is written “with a straight face,” or whether Eliphaz may in fact imply that Job is not innocent.73 This suggestion is unlikely, as it runs counter to the whole movement of the speech, which opens by appealing to Job to maintain his piety (4:2–6), and closes with assurances that those who do so are inevitably blessed and preserved (5:17–27).74 Even if Longman were correct, however, it would not resolve the problem that the vision dismisses Eliphaz’s own dichotomy between the fates of the innocent and the wicked.75 Yet not all who accept that the vision is an essential part of Eliphaz’s argument are happy with the traditional reading. Recognizing some of the above difficulties, a few attempt to evade them by denying that 4:17–21 implies universal sin. For instance, Fohrer (1963) and Andersen (1976) argue that the vision is not focused on retribution for good and evil, but rather on the inferiority of all created things to their creator.76 Fohrer admits that even the sinless remain frail creatures, and can be destroyed: “Not the guilty alone, but clay-made human beings altogether perish! In the shortest time, ‘from

70

LONGMAN, Job, 119, cf. 119–121. LONGMAN, Job, 121. 72 LONGMAN, Job, 116. 73 LONGMAN, Job, 117. 74 In subsequent speeches we see a shift, but it happens slowly: Bildad is also mostly positive, though he makes greater use of conditional statements (e.g. 8:4–6), and interweaves his assurances with more direct warnings (8:20–22). Zophar also speaks in conditionals (11:13–15), and is still more negative (11:2–6; cf. BALENTINE, Job, 101–2). Only by Eliphaz’s second speech do the friends finally drop their positive references to Job’s righteousness, only to return with a final appeal in 22:21–30. 75 LONGMAN, Job 117, himself affirms that Eliphaz is so convinced of the absolute distinction between the innocent and the guilty that he can judge a person guilty based solely on their fate: “If someone dies young, then they must have been wicked, even though that person seemed righteous.” But the vision allows no such contrast – none measure up to the righteousness of God, so any can die suddenly. Moreover, if 4:7–8 really were intended to set up a test for determining who is righteous and who wicked (rather than, as is much more likely, an assurance about what does indeed happen to the righteous and the wicked), it is death that is the measure, not suffering, so by that measure, Job is among the innocent (cf. CLINES, Job, 1.124). 76 FOHRER, Hiob, 144; ANDERSEN, Job, 113–116. Fohrer could perhaps be included in the following section, as he follows Fullerton in ascribing an “ironic” sense to Eliphaz’s speech (134), but he insists that the vision is itself presented as a legitimate revelation and a constituent part of Eliphaz’s argument (134, 141–42). 71

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Introduction

morning until evening,’ they come to an end.”77 He attempts to reconcile this with 4:7–11 by claiming that it explains the cases where retribution does not seem to hold true: If Job still suffers despite his innocence and the doctrine of retribution, he is only suffering the fate that can befall all people.78 Beuken (2007) and Pinker (2012) have recently defended similar perspectives.79 Of the two, Beuken’s essay is better argued, concluding that the point of the vision is not that humans are inherently sinful, but that no level of human (or even angelic) righteousness and purity can “offer a basis upon which one can postulate oneself over and against God.”80 He denies that ethical failing is implied by 4:18, much less 4:19–21.81 He therefore concludes that the vision complements 4:7–11 and 5:2–7, which affirm that the wicked bring trouble on themselves.82 The point of 4:7–5:7 as a whole is that the wicked are destroyed, but even the righteous cannot stand on an equal footing with God: “‘righteousness and purity’ do not provide the archimedian [sic.] certainty that would allow human beings to take pride of place before God.”83 Fohrer and Beuken thus rightly acknowledge that 4:19–21 does not describe the fate of the wicked alone, but that which can befall any human. But their own solutions create new problems. First, to reduce 4:17–21 to an affirmation of “the infinite distance” between God and humanity gives too little weight to the fact that the “distance” is defined by the issues of righteousness and purity in 4:17.84 The point could well be that these are irrelevant to one’s standing before God, but that still represents a direct rebuff to Eliphaz’s insistence that God blesses the innocent and destroys the wicked, by undermining the moral dichotomy on which that distinction is based. Moreover, the claim that even the innocent can suddenly perish in 4:19–21 does not resolve 77 FOHRER, Hiob, 145, “Nicht die Schuldigen allein, sondern die lehmbeschaffenen Menschen überhaupt kommen um! In kürzester Frist, ‘vom Morgen bis zum Abend,’ geht es mit ihnen zu Ende.” 78 FOHRER, Hiob, 146. 79 BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 293–313; cf. also idem, Imprecation, 41–78, which compares ch. 3 with ch. 4–5, but has surprisingly little to say about the vision; PINKER, Job 4,18, 500–519. 80 BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 298. Further, “V. 17 does not allude to sin, it simply observes that an infinite distance exists in the order of the cosmos between creatures and God” (299). PINKER, Job 4,18, 500–519, agrees that sin is not at issue in 4:17–21, but goes further to claim that 4:18 cannot refer to “supernatural entities” at all, but rather only to the inanimate heavenly bodies (511, 513, 518), and the passage thus merely compares the imperfections of creation to humanity’s still lower nature. He concludes that, just as creation as a whole is not perfect, even the righteous can be “deficient in the ‘manner’ of performing the righteous ‘acts’” (518–19). 81 BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 300–304. 82 BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 304–6. 83 BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 308. 84 Contra BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 299; similarly FORHER, Hiob, 144, emphasizes “die unendliche Unterlegenheit alles Geschaffenen gegenüber dem Schöpfer.”

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the anomalies unaddressed by 4:7–11, as Fohrer imagines; it directly challenges the contrast set up there. Fohrer himself recognizes that 4:7–11 insists that the innocent do not perish, only the wicked.85 Beuken also acknowledges this, but quickly brushes it aside, affirming that the real point is that all human power is dependent and passing.86 But even if such a sense can be read into 4:10–11, that must not obscure the clear dichotomy already established in 4:6–9 regarding who can perish. If the vision asserts that none is safe, it is difficult to see how the two claims can be deemed “complementary.”87 Therefore, while most commentators have assumed that the vision is fully consistent with the views of Eliphaz, this inevitably requires downplaying the conclusion in 4:19–21, the contrast in 4:7–8, or both. Traditionally, this was done by unduly minimizing the destruction in 4:19–21, summarizing the vision as nothing more than an affirmation of universal sin. A few more recent studies see the vision as an affirmation only of the vast difference between creator and creature, but still leave the tension between 4:7–11 and 4:19–21 unexplained. There are additional difficulties with the traditional view as well: First, it pays little if any attention to the subsequent allusions to the vision in the book, especially those in Job’s speeches. Second, it overlooks the subversive and unconventional aspects of 4:12–16, seeing in them only a means of emphasizing the supernatural nature of the vision. Not all have been so quick to domesticate this account, however, which brings us to the second major approach. II. The Vision as Ambiguous or Subversive Even at an early period, the more troubling aspects of the vision were not entirely missed. In particular, Gietmann (1887) suggests that the “spirit” in 4:15 is none other than the devil, as evidenced by the fearful impression made in 4:12–16 and the pessimistic depiction of angels and humanity in 4:18–21.88 Gietmann does not deny that Eliphaz appeals to the vision to support his views; he simply concludes that Eliphaz is wrong to do so. The vision supports the “basic error of the friends, namely their view of Job’s severe guilt.”89 This theory has found only occasional support, but it is followed by Hontheim (1902), Peters (1928), Vischer (1934) and even Barth (1959).90 85

FOHRER, Hiob, 138, 141. BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 304–5. 87 It is also unclear where Beuken finds a concern with human “pride of place before God” in 4:17–21 (308). It is not “pride of place” that is questioned here, but whether God considers any righteous and pure, and who can be destroyed. 88 GIETMANN, Klassische Dichter, 577–78. 89 GIETMANN, Klassische Dichter, 578, though he admits that this condemnation of Job is never explicit in the speech. 90 HONTHEIM, Hiob, 94–97; PETERS, Job, 3*-4*, cf. 51–57; VISCHER, Hiob, 9; BARTH, Church Dogmatics, IV,3.453–54. Barth does not specifically connect this with the vision, 86

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Introduction

Janzen (1985) and Seow (2013) also note that the questions in 4:17 are reminiscent of the Satan’s accusations in the prologue, but make little of it.91 Cotter (1992) claims that the whole account is “ironic” and suggests that “The spirit seems not to be God, as in the prophetic texts (cf. Joel 3:1[2:28]), but some terrifying night spirit.”92 Fyall (2002) goes further, arguing that the Satan stands behind a host of figures within the book, including the “spirit” in 4:15.93 To justify this, he emphasizes the subversive character of the message in 4:17–21 which “subtly exploits Job’s growing alienation from God.”94 He also claims that the dread (‫ )פחד‬in 4:14 can be linked to the Satan via the “terror” (‫ )דאבה‬that accompanies Leviathan in 41:14[22].95 He concludes that the friends themselves are therefore “instruments” of Satan.96 This is problematic, even if the vision is read in light of the prologue. First, the reference to dread is no obvious sign that the Satan is in view, even if one accepted a link between the Satan and Leviathan. As Szczygiel long ago noted, ‫ פחד‬appears a dozen times in Job, most of which refer to God himself.97 In as the others do, and cautions that Job’s friends “certainly have no idea that they are agents of Satan and the worst tempters of Job. They speak in all good faith” (454). 91 JANZEN, Job, 73–74 followed by SEOW, Job, 389. The latter suggests that Eliphaz “ironically” affirms the position of the adversary rather than God, but this does not appear to influence his reading of the rest of the passage (387–390, 398–409). HARDING, Spirit, 162–63, also notes the parallel between 4:17 and the Satan’s questions, but takes it as part of the broader ambiguity and potential subversiveness of the vision rather than as a specific link between the spirit in 4:15 and the Satan. Even GREENSTEIN, Inspiration, 107, floats the possibility that the vision derives from “a renegade spirit.” 92 COTTER, Job 4–5, 182, cf. 176–199. 93 FYALL, Eyes, esp. 37, 146–47. He does not hesitate to identify the Satan (which he takes as a name, not a title) with “the great dragon” of Revelation 12, who is also said to stand behind the personified Sea, Death, the King of Terrors, Leviathan and many other figures in Job (36–37 et passim). Fyall also claims that it is Satan, not God, who should be seen as the real referent of Job’s many depictions of God as aggressor and adversary, even though Job himself does not realize this (42–44, 157–168). 94 FYALL, Eyes, 147. He further substantiates this with a contrast between Eliphaz’s vision and “genuine” prophecy: “In other words, unlike a genuine prophetic message, which does indeed condemn human sinfulness but also calls attention to the remedy and provides the strength to carry it out, this ‘Message’ induces paralyzing fear and subtly exploits Job’s growing alienation from God whom he had regarded as a friend” (147). Fyall does not offer any justification for this depiction of “genuine” prophecy, which hardly does justice to the diversity of material described as prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, but he is right to stress the distressing and unconventional nature of the vision. 95 FYALL, Eyes, 147. 96 FYALL, Eyes, 147. JOHNSON, Eye, 118–19, comes to the same conclusion, though without denying that the vision is legitimate (and cf. 49–50, 59–60, 63). Instead, he suggests that Eliphaz “misappropriates divine revelation for the Satan’s own purposes” (119). 97 SZCZYGIEL, Hiob, 52, responding to GIETMANN, Klassische Dichter, 577–78, and HONTHEIM, Hiob, 94–97. ‫ פחד‬is used with reference to God in Job 3:25 (x2); 13:11; 21:9; 23:15; 25:2; 31:23. In a couple of further places it describes the fate of the wicked without

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fact, Job has just used the same term twice in 3:25 to describe his own fate as one “whose way is hidden, and God has closed in behind him” (3:23). In 13:9–11 Job also asserts that the friends would feel “dread” if God appeared to them: “Will it be well when he examines you?... Will not his majesty terrify you, and his dread [‫ ]פחד‬fall upon you?” (13:9, 11). More broadly, the claim that the friends are portrayed as mouthpieces for Satan is not plausible. Johnson (2009) attempts to support this by pointing to the friends’ attempts to convict Job of sin, claiming that if they succeeded in convincing him to confess it would “demonstrate that Job has served God for his own personal benefit.”98 But it is far from obvious that a confession of sin would demonstrate any such thing, much less that it “may ultimately lead him to curse God to his face.”99 Fyall’s suggestion that the vision serves to alienate Job from God “by giving him sinister images of powers attacking him,”100 may be closer to the mark, but also highlights the problem. For the vision itself may serve to alienate Job from God, but there is precious little else in the friends’ speeches that can be taken to do so. Throughout the first speech cycle especially, the friends’ goal is by no means Job’s condemnation, but rather his restoration, and this is reaffirmed at the end of Eliphaz’s final speech. Though the second speech cycle places greater emphasis on the destruction of the wicked, this should be seen as a reaction to Job’s own continued insistence that God has become his enemy. It is certainly not an attempt to convince Job that God is his enemy, much less to prompt him to curse God (again, cf. 22:21–30). Yet even if a link between the vision and the Satan is uncertain, these scholars are correct to sense that it is much more subversive and troubling than the traditional view recognized. The first to raise the possibility that the vision is ambiguous was Fullerton (1930), who suggests that the author makes intentional use of double entendre and irony to undermine Eliphaz’s position even while reporting it.101 He argues that this is part of a broader tendency within the book to “say one thing while meaning another,”102 using expressions that an orthodox reader would find comfortingly reassuring, but which reveal “an indirect but none the less real criticism of the orthodox position” if read “between the lines.”103 Thus Fullerton concludes that many directly connecting it to God’s appearance (15:21; 22:10). The term also appears in other connections in 39:16, 22. 98 JOHNSON, Eye, 119. 99 JOHNSON, Eye, 119. 100 FYALL, Eyes, 147. 101 FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 320–374. 102 FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 239. 103 FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 320. He first develops his theory of double entendre to explain the prologue and 38:1–40:5 (idem, Original Conclusion, 116–136), then later applies it to the vision (Double Entendre, 320–374), and finally to chs. 9–10 (idem, Chap-

22

Introduction

interpretive cruxes within the book should not be too quickly resolved into only one or the other reading, but may intentionally play with both. In the case of Job 4–5, he argues that this is seen especially in the portrayal of retribution: Where Eliphaz intends the contrast between the fates of the righteous and the wicked as an encouragement to trust God in the future, Job interprets it as a judgment on the cause of his own suffering in the past.104 For instance, when Eliphaz asks, “who that was innocent ever perished?” (4:7), his point is that Job will surely not be destroyed, so long as he maintains his integrity. In Job’s ears, however, this would have sounded like an accusation that he has been destroyed because he is not innocent.105 Fullerton suggests that the poet uses this double entendre to subtly set the stage for Job’s later critiques of the doctrine of retribution, by implying that Eliphaz “is so addicted to general formulas as solvents for life’s problems that he has lost all sense for reality.”106 Similarly, while Fullerton still maintains that the vision affirms universal sin, he appeals to this “psychological” ambiguity to resolve the apparent tension with 4:7, by distinguishing Eliphaz’s motivation from the text’s impact on Job. Both 4:7–11 and 4:17–21 are intended to be consolatory, but they address different issues: The first gives Job hope for the future; the second explains why Job suffered in the first place.107 In that way, Job is implicated only in the general sin of humankind, not condemned for any specific deeds.108 Yet from Job’s perspective, the distinction fails: “If he shared only in the general sin of the race, why was he visited with such unusual and terrible suffering? Pain as acute as his was not the common lot of mortals.”109 Thus Fullerton admits a tension inherent to the vision’s position, but attributes this to intentional ambiguity on the part of the author, who portrays Eliphaz as genuinely sympathetic, but inadvertently condemning. The tension between 4:7–11 and 4:17–21 is therefore real, and intended by the poet to lay the groundwork for Job’s own critiques in the following dialogues. There is a lot to appreciate in this reading, which is clearly a major advance over the superficial accounts of the vision seen in most of the earlier ters 9 and 10, 225–269, which focuses mostly on 9:2–4, with appendices on 4:12–21 and 25:4–6). 104 FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 331 et passim. 105 FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 329–330. 106 FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 332. 107 FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 328–330. That is, Eliphaz never intended 4:7–8 to explain Job’s suffering; he does that only with the vision (328, 336, 337). 108 FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 328, “[It] implicates him in sin, it is true, but only in the gentlest possible way. He does not accuse him of any specific transgressions which might account for his sufferings. He refers only to the general sinfulness of man which is inherent to man’s creatureliness” (cf. also 330). 109 FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 338.

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commentaries. It is not surprising that Fullerton’s theory has proven highly influential on subsequent scholarship, though the ambiguity he notes has been understood in a variety of ways. Nevertheless, there are significant problems with Fullerton’s analysis, particularly of the relation between the vision and the rest of the speech. First, though Fullerton appeals to double entendre to explain a number of different passages in the book, the ambiguity he detects is not all on the same level. For instance, when he discusses 40:3–5 and 9:2–4 in other articles, Fullerton effectively argues that the speaker (Job) uses double entendre to mask the subversive nature of his own claims.110 Yet in chs. 4–5 Fullerton explicitly denies that Eliphaz intends such a double entendre, and instead attributes the text’s ambiguity to the author. That is, where the ambiguity in Job’s speeches is taken as a sign that Job is speaking with “bitter irony,” the double entendre in Eliphaz’s speech is taken to be completely unintentional on Eliphaz’s own part.111 Moreover, while the examples Fullerton finds in 9:2–4 are all firmly grounded in the ambiguity of the terms that Job actually uses – ‫צדק‬, ‫עם‬, ‫ריב‬, ‫ – חכם‬most of the examples highlighted in chs. 4–5 are not based on such lexical ambiguity, but rather on a kind of “psychological analysis” of Eliphaz and Job respectively.112 In fact, Fullerton has a surprising tendency to dismiss lexical ambiguity in the vision, in contrast to his approach to 9:2–4.113 So he insists that ‫ רוח‬in 4:15 cannot mean “spirit,” but must only mean “a breath of air,”114 ‫ שׂערת‬can only mean “hair,” not “a storm wind,”115 and ‫ מן‬in 4:17 cannot mean “more 110 FULLERTON, Original Conclusion, esp. 124–26, 129–135; idem, Chapters 9 and 10, esp. 225–257. 111 Fullerton’s discussion of “irony” in the prologue and divine speeches seems to represent yet a third approach (Original Conclusion, esp. 124–136). In these cases, we are told that the author has written in such a way that a “pious reader” might understand the text in a traditionally orthodox way, while a “thoughtful reader” is meant to see a more subversive claim being made (130). In these cases, the purported intentions of the speaker seem to be left out of account altogether. Fullerton does not ask whether the character of YHWH intends to speak in such a double-sided manner, or if it is only the larger context of the book that suggests such a second layer of meaning in the divine speeches (Fullerton may imply the latter, though he does not make it explicit, cf. 130). In none of these cases does he need to appeal to the psychology of the character to explain a contradiction within his or her own words, the way he attempts to do in regard to Eliphaz’s speech. 112 FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 327. He nowhere appeals to such a concept or method in the article on Job 9–10, though he did appeal to it in the earlier piece on 40:3–5 (Original Conclusion, 119–121). 113 This is true not only of the earlier article on chs. 4–5 itself (FULLERTON, Double Entendre, esp. 346–355), but even in his comments on 4:17 in the later piece (idem, Chapters 9 and 10, esp. 252–54, 257–261). 114 FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 348. 115 FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 350.

24

Introduction

than,” but only “in the sight of,116 despite the fact that a range of scholars have made compelling cases for both readings of each of these terms. Instead of allowing these to introduce a real ambiguity into his reading of the vision at a literary level, Fullerton relies on the notion that Eliphaz simply did not realize how Job would misinterpret his attempts at consolation.117 J. C. L. Gibson (1975) and Weiss (1984) have also appealed to psychology to explain the tensions within chs. 4–5, though each in different ways from Fullerton.118 Gibson pulls no punches, declaring that, [Eliphaz’s use of the vision is] so reckless as to be not unworthy of Job himself. The implication is clearly of a capricious deity, who sows discord in the heavenly places and permits only ignorance on earth. This is so near the position to which Job is being driven, namely that guilty or not guilty God makes an end of both (9.22), that we have to think hard to see the difference.119

He therefore concludes that the vision and Eliphaz’s defense of retribution are “deeply contradictory,”120 but suggests that this merely reflects a deep-seated tension within Eliphaz’s own psyche: I am suggesting that the difference between Eliphaz and Job should be looked for in their psychological constitutions rather than in their philosophical conclusions. Both are sceptics about God’s loving interest in men, but whereas Job out of his despair goes on to the offensive, and beats at heaven’s doors demanding a confrontation with his persecutor, Eliphaz resiles in horror from the logic of his own thinking and scurries back in desperation to the haven of orthodoxy.121

In short, the vision proves that Eliphaz himself must be just as uncomfortable with the orthodox position as Job is; he is simply unwilling to give it up.122 Gibson claims that this “poignant tension between Eliphaz’s mind and heart”123 is also reflected in Eliphaz’s claim to have himself cursed the home of the fool (5:3), his admission that “man is born to trouble” (5:7), and his claim that God “catches the wise in their cunning” (5:13).124 Weiss takes a different approach, suggesting that Eliphaz was so traumatized by the death of Job’s children that he occasionally says more than he means, including in 4:17–21.125 He suggests that the various mixed metaphors relating to the destruction of human habitations in 4:19, 4:21 and 5:3 form a 116

FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 351; idem, Chapters 9 and 10, 257–261. FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 339–340. 118 J. C. L. GIBSON, Eliphaz, 259–272; WEISS, Bible from Within, 163–187, 427–431, the latter is an updated English edition of a work first published in Hebrew in 1962. 119 J. C. L. GIBSON, Eliphaz, 267, emphasis original. 120 J. C. L. GIBSON, Eliphaz, 268. 121 J. C. L. GIBSON, Eliphaz, 269, cf. 265. 122 J. C. L. GIBSON, Eliphaz, 267. 123 J. C. L. GIBSON, Eliphaz, 269. 124 J. C. L. GIBSON, Eliphaz, 269–272 125 WEISS, Bible from Within, 163–187. 117

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pattern, which the poet uses to show that Eliphaz is unable to integrate the traumatic memory of the collapse of Job’s children’s home into his theological system.126 So whenever Eliphaz approaches the subject he recoils, resulting in faulty metaphors.127 On this basis, Weiss admits the tension between Eliphaz’s claim that the innocent and upright are not destroyed, and the vision’s claim that all mortals perish suddenly, but insists that the latter was not what Eliphaz really meant to say. Rather, Eliphaz intended to say that God tests mortals, just as he does the angels, but the painful memory disrupted his train of thought: And so, absorbed in the reflection of the sudden destruction of Job’s children, Eliphaz forgets his intention to speak of the tests that God imposes on man (the expected parallel to the sentence “He puts no trust in His servants”); instead of speaking of suffering that comes as a test, he continues with the description of sudden and total destruction.128

In contrast to Gibson, Weiss thinks Eliphaz’s real belief is that the innocent are preserved, as he says in 4:7, but in the initial shock of Job’s fate he temporarily loses the ability to speak his mind. Once the shock has passed, Eliphaz is able to speak clearly in the rest of his speeches.129 Thus, Gibson and Weiss both acknowledge the tensions between the vision and its context, but explain them on the basis of two diametrically opposed reconstructions of the “deep psychology” of Eliphaz. In principle, this is not an illegitimate approach, as it should be obvious that the Joban poet was a keen observer of human psychology and well-capable of expressing emotion both explicitly and implicitly. Job’s own speeches offer ample evidence of 126 WEISS, Bible from Within, 170. He notes that all three refer metaphorically to the sudden destruction of human habitation, yet each leaves important aspects of the significance of the metaphor unstated (169–170). 127 WEISS, Bible from Within, 177–78. In his view, “the memory of the death of the children of Job and the disaster which befell them confused the thought of Eliphaz and caused the confusion in his imagery” (178, cf. 172). NEWSOM, Job, 382, also suggests that fear stands at the center of Eliphaz’s speech as a whole, but does not use that to try and reconcile 4:17–21 with 4:7–11. To be clear, Weiss justifies this psychologizing approach to Eliphaz, not on the grounds that Eliphaz was a real person whose “inner life” we can reconstruct, but instead on the grounds that the poet was a master of portraying the “deep psychology” of his characters (174, 179, following FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 330– 31). 128 WEISS, Bible from Within, 184. This dismisses what the text actually says in favor of a reconstruction of what it should have said. 129 WEISS, Bible from Within, 181–187. He further attempts to reconcile 4:7 with 4:17 on the grounds that “innocent” and “upright” are moral categories, while “just” and “pure” are juridical terms, and therefore there is no contradiction between a claim that the “innocent” do not perish, and a claim that the “just” can (181–82). It is difficult to see how this distinction is thought to help, not only because the terms in 4:7 and 4:17 can both be used in both moral and juridical senses, but more fundamentally because when God is the judge the very distinction between moral and juridical offenses is of limited utility.

26

Introduction

just such confused and conflicted thinking, which is clearly meant to reflect Job’s fear and uncertainty.130 The problem is rather that the evidence for such a disturbance in Eliphaz’s mind is based almost entirely on the vision itself, which explains the widely divergent conclusions Gibson and Weiss draw from it. While 4:12–16 certainly emphasizes the speaker’s uncommon fright and confusion, it is far from clear that 5:3, 5:7 and 5:13 can be taken to demonstrate anything similar.131 Meanwhile, both admit that there is no further evidence of this mental trauma in Eliphaz’s later speeches, nor in the speeches of any of the other friends. More compelling is Gibson’s recognition of how closely the vision resembles Job’s position, though his summary of the point of 4:17–21 goes too far to the other extreme. The vision does not “clearly” depict a capricious God,132 but it does raise troubling questions that Job will draw out at length. Moreover, while there is very little other evidence of mental trauma in Eliphaz’s speeches, Job’s are full of it from beginning to end. Instead of pursuing such a line, however, most recent studies that acknowledge the ambiguous and subversive aspects of the vision deny that they reflect Eliphaz’s own mental disruption, seeing them instead as a sign of the poet’s judgment on Eliphaz. Hoffman (1980), Paul (1983), Habel (1985), Clines (1989), Miller (1989), Cotter (1992), Whybray (1998), Whedbee (1998), Fyall (2001), Tsoi (2002), Harding (2005, 2010), Schmid (2007), Johnson (2009), Hamori (2010), and Longman (2012) all reflect such an ap130

To give just one example: Consider Job’s contradictory views of his own death, which he sometimes desperately wishes would come soon (e.g. 3:3–19; 6:8–9; 10:18–19), and other times bitterly laments and accuses God of bringing about (e.g. 7:1–10; 10:20–22; 13:15–14:22 [but cf. 14:13]; 16:9–17:1; 17:10–16; 19:6–12). KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 153–161, and KUMMEROW, Hopeful or Hopeless, 1–41, both trace a development in Job’s thought concerning death, but whether this represents a consistent shift, or only a messy uncertainty, there is no question that Job expresses more than one perspective on death. The tension between these perspectives is especially stark in 10:18–22. Cf. also C. B. HAYS, Your Destiny, 219–233. 131 That Eliphaz curses the home of a fool does not prove that he himself knows that the fool is often not destroyed (contra J. C. L. GIBSON, Eliphaz, 269), nor is the mixed metaphor in the verse proof of some kind of deep-seated mental shock (contra WEISS, Bible from Within, 170). Similarly, while Eliphaz’s imagery in 5:6–7 is difficult and can be interpreted either to agree with the vision or to disagree with it, there is nothing in the verses themselves that suggests fear or doubt on Eliphaz’s part (contra J. C. L. GIBSON, Eliphaz, 269). Finally, while the condemnation of “the wise” in 5:13 might be ironic, and may even serve the author’s purpose of subtly undermining Eliphaz himself, it is hardly to be imagined that Eliphaz “must be forlornly if not a little frantically addressing himself as well as Job” (270). None of these passages refers to Eliphaz’s own fear. GREENSTEIN, Extent, 246–47, also critiques Gibson and Weiss for their psychologizing approaches to the vision, but without acknowledging that ambiguity is a prominent feature of the text. 132 Contra J. C. L. GIBSON, Eliphaz, 267.

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proach to varying extents.133 Habel gets the credit for popularizing this approach, and his conclusion is widely repeated: The poet’s bizarre collage of disparate allusions borders on a parody of traditional modes of revelation…. Probable allusions to various revelatory traditions are deliberately brought into clever juxtapositions of unlikely associations. An anonymous word steals in, a vague sound is snatched, a nightmare intrudes on a deep sleep, a terror confronts the sleeper, a whirlwind makes him shiver.… Thus the poet seems to be passing a verdict on the validity of private revelations and personal experiences as the basis for substantiating traditional teaching.134

The fullest and most effective account of this aspect of the text is by Harding, who discusses two levels of ambiguity: that which is inherent to the text itself at the lexical level, and that inevitably introduced by the “indeterminacy” of reading itself.135 Since we cannot reconstruct the author’s “intertextual” background with certainty, the reader is invited “to construct meaning out of a range of possibilities.”136 On that basis, he focuses on a series of expressions within the vision that could be taken either to imply its legitimacy as revelation, or to undermine it.137 As he notes, these ambiguities do more than just leave uncertain the genuineness of the vision, they also open up the possibility that it is deceptive, alluding to the “spirit of falsehood” described in 1 Kgs 22 and elsewhere.138 The latter connection has also been defended by Hamori, who notes that this motif is much more widespread in the Hebrew Bible than is generally recognized.139 Both conclude that the vision implicitly 133 HOFFMAN, Equivocal Words, 114–19; PAUL, Hair Raising, 119–121; HABEL, Job, 115–117, 126–130; CLINES, Job, 1.110–114, 128–137; J. E. MILLER, Foreshadowing, 98– 112; COTTER, Job 4–5, 176–199; WHYBRAY, Job, 40–42, WHEDBEE, Comic Vision, 221– 262, esp. 232–33; FYALL, Eyes, 146–47; TSOI, Vision, 155–182; HARDING, Spirit, 137– 166; idem, Metaprophecy, 523–547; SCHMID, Schriftdiskussion, 241–261, esp. 252–58; JOHNSON, Eye, 49–50, 53–54, 59–63, 116–119; HAMORI, Spirit, 24–26; LONGMAN, Job, 118–121. Others acknowledge the ambiguity or tension without clarifying its purpose, e.g. POPE, Job, 36; WÜRTHWEIN, Wort und Existenz, 237–39; MAAG, Hiob, 140–43; NEWSOM, Job, 377–79, 382–84; idem, Contest, 138–151. 134 HABEL, Job, 121–22. Habel is not the first to note the “uncanny” nature of the vision, but he is the first to offer a substantive defense of it. ROBERTSON, Early Hebrew Prophet, 417, and POPE, Job, 36, had previously affirmed that “This passage is one of the most uncanny in the Old Testament,” without giving any details. Pope went on to suggest that “The poet toys in poetic fancy with the dread effect of contact with the divine.” 135 HARDING, Spirit, 138–140. 136 HARDING, Spirit, 140. 137 HARDING, Spirit, 140. Rather than decide between them, he prefers “allowing oneself to be teased by the multiplicity of different possibilities inherent in the text” (142). 138 HARDING, Spirit, 149–150, 161–66. 139 HAMORI, Spirit, 15–30. Her concern is not primarily with Job, but with the larger motif in the Hebrew Bible, which she finds in 1 Kgs 22:19–23; 1 Sam 16:14–23; 18:10–12; 19:9–10; Judg 9:23–24; 2 Kgs 19:7 (//Isa 37:7); Isa 19:13–14; probably Isa 29:9–10; Job 4:12–21; Hos 4:12–5:4 (in light of Hos 9:7; 12:2[1]); and possibly Mic 2:11 and Ps 104:4.

28

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raises the possibility that Eliphaz has been deceived, but Harding goes further to suggest that the vision is both called into question by YHWH’s final speeches, and that the vision itself calls the divine speeches into question. After all, Eliphaz is condemned by YHWH in the end, yet the questions the vision raises about God’s justice are not so easily answered.140 He argues that the whole book can be read as “metaprophecy,” a critique of the very phenomenon of prophecy as a reliable source of knowledge.141 Harding’s case is fascinating and generally well-argued, but some of his conclusions are questionable. For instance, he claims that the book as a whole critiques the prophetic role of the friends, even though he admits that the most explicit critique of prophetic imagery is aimed at Job, by Eliphaz himself in 15:8, “Do you listen in the council of God, and limit wisdom to yourself?”142 This is widely recognized as a prophetic image, so Harding concludes that Eliphaz must reject Job’s claims to prophecy in favor of his own, since unlike Job, “Eliphaz understands that all beings less than the deity are more or less blameworthy.”143 Harding is right to see 15:8 as a rejection of Job’s prophetic role, but outside of 4:12–21 and its citation in 15:14–16, it is not Eliphaz but Job who insists that God counts none righteous. And why should Eliphaz dismiss Job’s revelatory role at all, unless Job has somewhere claimed to pass along revelation? Harding explicitly denies that Job ever claims direct access to divine wisdom, pointing especially to 42:3,144 but this

As she notes, it need not be assumed that all of these have the same figure in view, merely that all of them reflect the same assumption that YHWH can and does send a “spirit” in order to condemn and destroy people, especially kings and prophets (18). 140 HARDING, Spirit, esp. 161–66; idem, Metaprophecy, 536–38. 141 HARDING, Metaprophecy, 526 et passim. He takes the term from discussions of the book of Jonah and the words of Agur in Prov 30:1–4, following DELL, Sceptical Literature, 153–57, and BEN ZVI, Signs of Jonah, 80–98. This is seen not only in the explicit references to visions and divine speech, but also in Job’s frequent subversions of prophetic imagery and expressions, especially from Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah (HARDING, Metaprophecy, 526–27). Job’s reversal of the prophetic “disputation” (‫ )ריב‬to accuse God himself is the best-known example, but he also suggests that Job’s wish for a mediator (9:32– 35; 16:19–21; 19:25) may be an implicit critique of the friends for claiming to speak for God, while refusing the intercessory role of the prophet on his behalf (533–36). 142 HARDING, Metaprophecy, 532, cf. 529–533. This is often compared to Jeremiah’s question to the “false” prophets in Jer 23:18 “For who has stood in the council of YHWH, to see and hear his word?” (e.g. BUDDE, Hiob, 77; HARDING, Metaprophecy, 530–31. J. GRAY, Job, 239, think Eliphaz “may consciously echo” Jer 23:18 here). WEINFELD, Partition, 224–25, suggests that neither Eliphaz nor Jer 23 should be understood to claim such experiences for the speaker, only to dismiss those of others as illegitimate. 143 HARDING, Metaprophecy, 533. 144 HARDING, Metaprophecy, 532–33, 542–43 n. 29. Job quotes YHWH (from 38:2) and responds “‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I do not perceive, things too wonderful for me, which I do not know” (42:3). Whether

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oversimplifies Job’s attitude toward revelation across the book.145 While Harding and others rightly emphasize that the vision is more subversive than the traditional view allowed, they do not give adequate attention to Job’s own use of the vision, nor to the friends’ critiques of it. This is also true of Notter’s 2004 study on dreams in the book of Job.146 Though she discusses 4:12–17, 7:13–15, 20:8 and 33:14–18 at length, her focus is on the phenomena of dreams and visions – from a psychological perspective – rather than the content of the vision or its role in the book.147 While she thinks all four passages are intentionally linked, she presents them as divergent reflections on the meaning and possibility of dreams and visions in general, not responses to a particular vision.148 On her reading, Eliphaz claims that his vision, which is not a dream, is revelatory, while Job describes his dreams and visions only as fearful, not revelatory.149 Zophar seems dismissive of dreams and visions altogether, while Elihu considers both a means of revelation, though not one tied to specific content.150 That YHWH finally appears in a storm, not a dream or a vision, may indicate a rejection of such private forms of revelation, or it may simply be a special privilege given to Job.151 In that context, she follows Cotter and Holbert in seeing both Eliphaz’s vision and Zophar’s response as ironic, from which she concludes that their perspectives on dreams are not embraced by the book as a whole.152 this represents a dismissal of prior revelation is debatable, but it certainly does not prove that Job “never” has relied on revelation before. 145 In fact, HARDING, Metaprophecy, 537, is correct that the issue in Job is not simply the legitimacy of divine speech itself, but rather the reliability of the link between divine speech and the act-consequence-nexus. One could go further and say that the problem is not at all whether God speaks – the book climaxes in a theophany, and God speaks directly in the epilogue as well, so there is no denying that revelation is deemed possible – the issue is rather the content of God’s word, which is much more troubling and ambiguous than we might expect. The vision itself first raises that problem, introducing an apparent revelation that directly challenges the friends’ dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked, laying the groundwork for Job’s own critique. That the divine speeches also seem to undermine any clear link between creation and justice deepens the tension, but hardly proves that revelation is inherently unreliable. 146 NOTTER, Traumverständnis. 147 Cf. NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 8–9, 56–57, 99–100, et passim. 148 She highlights the foundational role of 4:12–17 in the book, not as a source of theological debate, but in problematizing visionary experience itself: “Es ist daher möglich, dass auch für das Offenbarungsverständnis im Buch Ijob mit der Erfahrung von Elifas eine Diskussionsvorlage gegeben ist: Die Erfahrung von Visionen und ihrer Träger wird problematisiert” (NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 56, emphasis original). 149 NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 14–71, esp. 55–57, 70–71. 150 NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 72–95, esp. 77–79, 94–95. 151 NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 97–98. 152 NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 46–47, 54–55, 77–78, following COTTER, Job 4–5, 181– 82; HOLBERT, Skies, 174–79.

30

Introduction

The main value of this study is that it sets these texts alongside one another more fully than anyone else has done. In the process, Notter highlights several notable lexical connections between them, and rightly emphasizes that these passages do not all share the same perspective on dreams and visions. Nevertheless, by focusing on the phenomena of dreams rather than the specific content associated with Eliphaz’s vision, she sees only a small part of the role that 4:12–21 plays in the passages she discusses, much less in the book as a whole. For instance, she misses the thematic parallels between 4:17–21 and 7:11–21, even though she acknowledges that 7:13–15 alludes to 4:13– 14.153 She also overlooks the ways 20:2–11 and 33:12–18 respond to Job’s interpretation of the vision, even though she notes that both Zophar and Elihu quote from the vision and Job himself side by side in these passages.154 In both cases, she concludes that Eliphaz is critiqued alongside Job, even though in context both Zophar and Elihu are unambiguously addressing Job. Since she does not consider 4:18–21 to be part of the vision, she does not address the relation of these verses to their context, nor how they can be reconciled with Eliphaz’s (and Zophar’s) insistence on a clear dichotomy between the innocent and the wicked.155 That Job builds on the vision throughout his speeches, and not just in 7:13–14, is not acknowledged. One of the few who recognizes that Job responds to the vision in chs. 7, 9 and 14 is Tsoi, who suggests that part of the book’s irony is created by the contrast between the vision and these responses.156 Unfortunately, his analysis of the respective theologies of Job and his friends is dubious. He sees in the vision an affirmation of God’s mistrust of humanity, but simply assumes that this reflects the view of Eliphaz, while strangely asserting that Job denies this.157 Though Job’s complaints are expressed negatively, Tsoi claims that they presuppose “that the human person is a ‘trusted creature’, delegated with capability and responsibility to rule over the world.”158 This therefore “directly opposes the main argument of Eliphaz’ message,” as seen in 4:18–19.159 But if anyone in the book accepts that human beings are “trusted” creatures, it 153

NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 62. NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 72, 77–78, 81, 94–95. 155 Cf. NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 17–18. 156 TSOI, Vision, 155–182. His reconstruction of the theology of the character of Job follows HABEL, Naked I Came, 381–85, but Tsoi goes further to suggest that in these chapters particularly Job directly responds “to the pessimistic anthropology of Eliphaz and his friends” (TSOI, Vision, 171 n. 33). 157 TSOI, Vision, 167–178. 158 TSOI, Vision, 178, cf. 173–182, he claims that in this and other ways Job implicitly accepts the central presuppositions of the wisdom tradition. 159 TSOI, Vision, 178. The only evidence of this positive view in Job’s speeches that he offers is 14:7–10, which actually affirms the opposite, and 42:6, which can only be linked to such a view through a debatable allusion to Gen 18:27 (178–180), on which, see BALENTINE, What Are Human Beings, 276–77. 154

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is the friends, who insist that human beings have been granted divine wisdom from time immemorial.160 By contrast, Job is the one who constantly complains that God does not trust human beings, but destroys them indiscriminately.161 Tsoi himself acknowledges that Job claims, “Humans are born with greatness but are prevented from fulfilling it by the surveillance of God.”162 He contrasts this with the vision, which describes human frailty as “an inherited condition,” while Job believes it is “caused by the limitation from God,”163 but both Job and the vision simply describe what human life is like – frail and suddenly ended. The vision no more states that human beings deserve this fate than Job does. In fact, the very “irony” that Tsoi and so many others perceive in the vision itself is less characteristic of the speeches of the friends than of the speeches of Job. He is the one who regularly says one thing while meaning another, who frequently contradicts himself, twists literary forms and parodies familiar expressions.164 Therefore, while Fullerton and his many followers are right to emphasize the troubling elements in the vision, the tensions they highlight do more than just undermine Eliphaz’s position; they raise questions about the vision’s attribution to Eliphaz in the first place. Both thematically and stylistically, the vision simply does not fit with the rest of what the friends have to say. As we will now see, a number of scholars do take this seriously, and conclude that the vision does not belong in Eliphaz’s mouth at all, at least not originally. III. The Vision as a Late Addition In light of the difficulties faced by all purely synchronic approaches to the book, others have looked to diachronic explanations for the uncomfortable 160 E.g. 8:8–10; 15:9–10, 17–19; 20:4–5. To support his conclusion that the friends’ maintain a pessimistic attitude TSOI, Vision, 167–68, 179–180, points to 15:14–16, 25:4–6 and 20:7–11, the latter of which comes from a description of the wicked (20:5), and is by no means applied to human beings generally. Zophar does not accept that all human beings “perish forever” (20:7), only those who “reach up to heaven” (20:6) and those who “crushed and abandoned the poor” (20:19). 161 This is evident from the very passage in ch. 14 that TSOI, Vision, 179, quotes: “But a man dies, and disappears; man expires, and where is he?” (14:10). Job continues: “you destroy the hope of a mortal. You prevail forever against him, and he passes away” (14:19– 20). Unlike Zophar’s use of similar imagery in 20:5–9 (which draws language both from 4:12–21 and 14:10–21), Job is not speaking only of the wicked, but of all mortals, or at least of himself. Granted, Job’s point is that human beings deserve better treatment than this, but the reality he describes is that human beings are not trusted, but thwarted. 162 TSOI, Vision, 172; he draws this conclusion especially from 7:17–18. 163 TSOI, Vision, 172. 164 DELL, Sceptical Literature, 136, considers 4:12–21, 5:3–7 and 22:15–16 the only possible examples of misused forms in the speeches of the friends; all others are restricted to Job’s speeches (125–138). See below, Chapter Four, Section A.I.

32

Introduction

relation between the vision and its context. Though diachronic analysis of the book of Job has tended to focus on the relation of the prose and poetry, or on the development of the second half of the poetic dialogues (chs. 22–41), there have also been a number of attempts to identify secondary insertions in the first two speech cycles, including in chs. 4–5. In particular, many recognize that the transitions between 4:7–11, 4:12–21 and 5:1–7 are uncomfortable, but it has most often been assumed that the problem lies in the context, rather than in the vision itself.165 Through the 1920s, 4:9–11, 5:1 and 5:6–7 were all regularly dismissed as secondary glosses.166 For instance, Duhm (1897) suggests that all three originated as marginal notations that were later incorporated into the text.167 Notably, he observes that 5:6–7 seems to push back against 4:19–21, insisting that misfortune is not inherent to creation (5:6), but remains a human responsibility (5:7).168 Similarly, he suggests that 5:1 began as a marginal gloss on 4:18, so that 4:19–21 originally continued with Eliphaz’s depiction of the fate of the fool in 5:2–5.169 The material in 4:8–11 is rejected on similar grounds.170 Thus, the originality of 4:12–21 is preserved, but only at the cost of much of its context. Subsequent commentators have remained suspicious of 5:1 due to its abrupt shift from 4:21, its tension with the appeal to a “spirit” in 4:15, and the difficulty in determining to what in Job’s speech it could be responding.171 But 5:1 simply does not read like a gloss or marginal notation. It is an appeal, and indeed its form is identical to the appeal in 4:7.172 Further, as already noted, 4:7–11 and 5:1–5 as a whole are closely parallel, so it is problematic to 165 Though as FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 340 n. 9, pointed out in 1930, early scholarship generally made “little systematic attempt to relate the different parts of the speech of Eliphaz, with their varying moods, to each other.” 166 For a survey through 1921, cf. GILLISCHEWSKI, Die erste Elifaz-Rede, 290–296. 167 DUHM, Hiob, 26–27, 30–32. 168 DUHM, Hiob, 31–32. Like many others, he favors repointing ‫ יולד‬as a Hiph, meaning human beings give birth to misfortune (cf. 15:35), rather than being born to it (so MT), but he insists that either way 5:6–7 reads more naturally as a critical response to the vision than as Eliphaz’s own conclusion from it. 169 DUHM, Hiob, 30. 170 DUHM, Hiob, 26–27; he describes 4:8–11 as so poorly constructed and ill-fit to the tone of the preceding verses that one is glad to strike them as glosses. 171 E.g. HABEL, Job, 130, affirms that, “A connection between the opening verse [5:1] and what precedes or follows is not immediately apparent.” It is rejected as a secondary gloss by SIEGFRIED, Job, 3; GILLISCHEWSKI, Die erste Elifaz-Rede, 293; DRIVER AND GRAY, Job, 49; FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 324, 355–57. Others transfer 5:1 to precede 5:8 (e.g. DHORME, Job, 62–63; DE WILDE, Hiob, 110, 112; J. GRAY, Job, 160–61). See SMITH, Vision, 455–56, for a critique of various attempts to explain the background of 5:1. 172 “Think now [‫]זכר־נא‬, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright destroyed?” (4:7), “Call now [‫]קרא־נא‬, is there anyone who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?” (5:1).

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assign 5:1 to a later hand.173 More broadly, if 4:12–21 is the original core of Eliphaz’s speech and the problem lies in its context, why does the vision itself play so little role in the rest of Eliphaz’s own speeches, while the passages that it sits most uncomfortably with – 4:7–11 and 5:1–7 – reflect a point of view he repeatedly affirms, as do all of the friends? Aside from Tur-Sinai and his followers, who we will discuss in the next section, only a few commentators question the originality of the vision itself. Fohrer and Hesse (1978) reject 4:16a and 4:19c, to eliminate the tri-cola that are uncharacteristic of the speech as a whole, while Hölscher deletes 4:19c– 20 for similar reasons.174 Baumgärtel (1933) and Crook (1959) both concluded that 15:14–16 contradicts Eliphaz’s clear dichotomy between the innocent and the wicked, though neither accepts that the same is true of the vision itself.175 In Crook’s case, she concluded that the pessimistic view of human nature in 15:14–16 is “in no way suited to Eliphaz’s teaching,” and must have been added by a later editor.176 Intriguingly, however, she does not read 4:17– 21 this way, but rather as a claim that human beings cannot bring charges against God.177 Such a reading is questionable, but it would still leave the vision closer to Job’s views than Eliphaz’s. After all, Job is the one who complains about the impossibility of winning a case against God. In the end, therefore, the vision is no more fitting in Eliphaz’s mouth than 15:14–16 is. It was not until the 1990s that the latter connection was more widely recognized, thanks primarily to Witte’s influential 1994 monograph.178 He concludes that 4:12–21, 15:11–16 and 25:2–6 were all added by a later redactor (Niedrigkeitsbearbeiter), with a much lower view of human nature than that

173 WITTE, Leiden, 72, followed by NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, 18, 20–21. Even FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 356, notes that 5:1–7 seems more closely tied to 4:2–8 than to the vision. 174 FOHRER, Hiob, 131; HESSE, Hiob, 51; HÖLSCHER, Hiob, 18; cf. NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, 24 n. 14. 175 BAUMGÄRTEL, Hiobdialog, 95–97, cf. 13–15; CROOK, Cruel God, 68, cf. 29–30. Both also suggest that 25:4–6 is a late addition (BAUMGÄRTEL, Hiobdialog, 95 n. 62, 146, CROOK, Cruel God, 112–113). Crook notes that this contradicts Bildad’s earlier speeches (113). 176 CROOK, Cruel God, 68. 177 CROOK, Cruel God, 29–30; she claims that 4:18–21 describes human inability to trust the angels or their fellow human beings, rather than God’s refusal to do so: “17 Can mortal man prevail over God? Can a man be cleared at his Maker’s expense? 18 He [a man] cannot rely upon His [God’s] servants, Nor in His angels can he place hope; Much less in them that dwell in houses of clay” (29–30, additions original). Such an implicit shift from the man, to God, and back to the man as the implicit referent of the 3rd person Sg. pronominal suffixes is doubtful, as is the translation of ‫ מאלוה יצדק‬as “prevail over God.” 178 WITTE, Leiden; for brief summaries in German and English, cf. idem, Dritte Rede Bildads, 349–355; idem, Torah, 55.

34

Introduction

originally attributed to the friends.179 This aspect of Witte’s theory was also defended the same year by Vermeylen (1994), and has been taken up with only minor adjustments by O. Kaiser (1994, 2006), Syring (2004), Kottsieper (2006), van Oorschot (2007), Nõmmik (2010) and Wanke (2013).180 Since Witte’s own study remains the fullest defense of the theory, I will focus on his account.181 Witte recognizes that the low view of humanity seen in these passages is not consistent with the friends’ perspective, and argues that all stand out from their contexts. Beginning with ch. 25, he notes that every other speech of the friends begins with an introductory address, followed by the body of the speech which emphasizes retribution, and closing with a summary conclusion. Job 25:2–6 lacks all of these elements, but it is not simply a fragment, as it forms a tight chiasm, framed by a contrast between the supremacy of God (25:2) and the lowliness of humanity (25:6), surrounding parallel comparisons between God’s light and the heavenly lights (25:3, 5), and centered around the challenge to human righteousness with God (25:4).182 Against attempts to restore the missing elements from bits of chs. 24 or 26, Witte insists that neither Bildad nor Zophar had an original third speech at all, and that the “third speech cycle” stems from a series of late redactions.183 Bildad’s speech, therefore, was added in its present form at some point after the Elihu speeches.184 To support this, he argues that both of the earlier occurrences of this Niedrigkeitsmotif in chs. 4 and 15 also disrupt the speeches in which they occur.185 In ch. 15, he suggests that 15:11–16 disrupts the link between 15:10 179

WITTE, Leiden, esp. 91–93, 173–78, 191–92; he also assigns 40:3–5 and 42:2–6* to the same redactional layer. 180 VERMEYLEN, Le méchant, 101–127, esp. 108–9, seems to have come to this conclusion independently, but acknowledges Witte’s fuller defense of it (108). The rest are all explicitly dependent on Witte: O. KAISER, Grundriß, 70–83, esp. 74–75; idem, Hiob, 116– 17, 125–27; SYRING, Anwalt, 147–48, 165–66; KOTTSIEPER, Thema verfehlt, 2.775–85, esp. 82; VAN OORSCHOT, Entstehung, 182–184; NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, esp. 2–3, 17–44, 65–68 (bibliographic listing 24 n. 14); WANKE, Praesentia Dei, esp. 11–15, 385–391. Cf. also STRAUSS, Hiob, 101–6. SCHMID, Schriftdiskussion, 252 n. 35, and PILGER, Erziehung, 195 n. 141, who note the theory as a possibility, but do not commit to it. 181 The most significant divergence from Witte’s reconstruction is van Oorschot’s suggestion that the Niedrigkeitsredaktion is the last stage in the book’s composition, where Witte claimed that it was followed by at least two others (the Majestätsredaktion and Gerechtigkeitsredaktion; VAN OORSCHOT, Entstehung, 182–84, followed by his student, WANKE, Praesentia Dei, 11–15, 385–391). 182 WITTE, Leiden, 59–62; see chart on 78. 183 WITTE, Leiden, 25–36, 193–229 et passim. 184 See the summary of his rather complex relative chronology, WITTE, Leiden, 191–92, and the slightly modified outline in idem, Torah, 55. 185 Also noted by VERMEYLEN, Le méchant, 108–9, 124.

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and 15:17–19, while contradicting 15:20–35.186 In chs. 4–5, he emphasizes the parallel between 4:7–11 and 5:1–5, which is disrupted by 4:12–21. He also notes various metrical and lexical idiosyncrasies which set the passage apart from Eliphaz’s otherwise consistent poetry.187 On that basis, he concludes that the parallel phrasing in 4:17–19, 15:14–16 and 25:4–6 implies that all three were added by the same redactor.188 So where Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar originally assumed that human beings can be righteous, the Niedrigkeitsbearbeiter added three passages that acknowledge that even at their best, human begins are frail creatures who cannot compare to God. Witte further supports this by suggesting that similarly low views of human nature tend to appear primarily in later texts, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls.189 Witte builds a strong case, and there are significant elements of his reconstruction that will be taken up later. He rightly challenges the originality of the vision to Eliphaz’s speech, and may well be correct that the third speech cycle has been reshaped secondarily, a possibility we will return to in Chapter Three. Nevertheless, Witte’s claim that not only chs. 24–28 but the whole dialogue has been expanded by successive layers of redaction is doubtful. His prime example of the Niedrigkeitsredaktion is a case in point. The strong structural similarities between 4:17–19, 15:14–16 and 25:4–6 may support their attribution to a single hand, but his case is problematic. For instance, he appeals to the finely-wrought parallelism and chiastic structure of 25:2–6 to demonstrate that it is a self-contained passage and not a fragment of a longer speech,190 but then he claims that the unconventional and purportedly lower quality of the poetry in 4:12–21 sets it apart as redactional.191 Of course, any writer is capable of composing better and worse poetry, but it is difficult to see how both can be a distinguishing mark of the same redactor. More significantly, while Witte is certainly correct that the vision contradicts Eliphaz’s claims elsewhere, he imposes a false uniformity of structure on the friends’ speeches, claiming that the vision is out of place in all three of 186

WITTE, Leiden, 75–77; cf. NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, 38–39. WITTE, Leiden, 69–74; cf. NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, 24–26. 188 WITTE, Leiden, esp. 91–93. 189 WITTE, Leiden, 193–205, cf. e.g. Sir 17:30–32; 1 En 81.5, 1QS 11.9–22 and 1QH 9.21–23 [=1.19–21 in Sukenik’s edition]; 11.23–25 [=3.22–24]; 12.29–31 [=4.28–30]; 20.24–31 [=12.21–28]; 22.7 [=frag. 1.8]. VERMEYLEN, Le méchant, 108 n. 34, also pointed to Sir 18:8–14; 40:1–11. By contrast, MATTINGLY, Pious Sufferer, 305–348, argues that this low view of humanity has deep roots in the ancient Near East, reflected already in the Sumerian Man and His God, which attributes to the wise the saying, “Never has a sinless child been born to its mother” (103–4, COS, 1.574; cf. MATTINGLY, Pious Sufferer, 329– 336). If nothing else, this demonstrates the precariousness of dating based on “early” or “late” ideas (POPE, Job, xxxciiii-xxxx). Nevertheless, Witte is correct that such ideas are much more influential in the late second temple period than in earlier Jewish literature. 190 WITTE, Leiden, 59–62. 191 WITTE, Leiden, 70–74. 187

36

Introduction

these occurrences.192 These three passages in 4:12–21, 15:11–16 and 25:2–6 are not all related to their present contexts in the same ways. In particular, his evidence against the current placement of 15:11–16 is much weaker than in the other two cases, and overlooks the possibility that 15:12–16 may actually quote Job. As will be argued much more fully in Chapter Two, 15:11–16 is closely tied to the rejection of Job’s divine knowledge in 15:2–8. It plays an important role in the speech as a whole and can by no means be deleted as a secondary addition.193 Similarly, while Witte is correct that the poetic form and vocabulary in 4:12–21 are out of place in Eliphaz’s speech, they are by no means unprecedented in the book as a whole – they are characteristic of Job’s speeches. In fact, this is true of the Niedrigkeitsmotif itself, which may be rare in the friends’ speeches, but is common in Job’s.194 If it is true that 15:12–16 responds to the vision, however, we have seen that it is by no means the only passage to do so, and this is where Witte’s theory begins to fray. In order to eliminate the vision from the original form of the book, he must dismiss or ignore a number of other passages as well. Thus, he assigns 7:20–21 and 9:2–14 to a still later Gerechtigkeitsredaktion, while ignoring Job’s use of similar motifs across his speeches, including in the second half of ch. 9 and throughout ch. 14.195 Job’s complaint of dreams and visions in 7:14 is also overlooked, as is Zophar’s critical reuse of the 192

The tables in WITTE, Leiden, 78, 89, purport to show a consistent structure across each of the first seven speeches of the friends, by showing that each speech has all the same elements with the exception of 4:12–21 and 15:11–16 (and 11:6–9), which therefore stand out. This simply omits the many other unique or rare elements to be found in each of the speeches, not the least of which is the depiction of Job as “firstborn of the human race” in 15:7–8. Witte first lists the latter as part of the Body of the speech, under “Explikation der These [zur Vergeltung]” (which seems to be nothing more than a catch-all category; 78). Then later he lists it under the Introduction to the speech as “Anklage Hiobs” (89). Neither categorization is satisfactory: Job 15:7–10 does not seem to be focused on retribution (Vergeltung), nor can it easily be assigned to the introduction of the speech, even if it is certainly an accusation (Anklage). 193 Also noted by KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 57–58 n. 3; SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 93– 94. 194 The difference is that Job draws negative conclusions from it, while 25:2–6 and various later texts such as Sir, 1QS and 1QH draw positive ones. Where Job emphasizes the inescapability of destruction – just as 4:19–21 does – those later texts emphasize the greatness of God compared to the lowliness of humanity. The latter move is simply not made in 4:12–21 or 15:14–16, as it is in 25:2–6. 195 WITTE, Leiden, 94, 183–84. Both 9:15–35* and 14:1–22* are retained in the original form of the dialogue. The overarching theory also suffers from the fact that he can only demonstrate that the various motifs seen in the “third speech cycle” are late by eliminating all occurrences of these themes from the earlier portions of the dialogue. The same problem applies to Nõmmik’s reconstruction, which accepts Witte’s conclusions but goes further to dismiss virtually every inconsistent element in the friends’ speeches, even reconstructing “original” bi-cola from each tri-cola in their speeches (NÕMMIK, Freundesreden).

A. History of Research

37

vision’s imagery in 20:2–8.196 While Witte correctly emphasizes that the vision does not represent Eliphaz’s viewpoint, it must have existed somewhere in the original form of the dialogues to explain such widespread reuse. Köhlmoos (1999) emphasizes the last point especially. She considers it indisputable that chs. 23–27 have been shaped by subsequent redactors, but insists that the vision itself plays too central a role in the dialogues to simply delete as a late addition.197 She further denies that ch. 25 can be attributed to the same hand as 4:12–21 and 15:14–16, as it combines phrasing from both, yet eliminates the angelological motif found in 4:18 and 15:15, while introducing a cosmological emphasis not seen in the earlier passages.198 She therefore suggests that ch. 25 and much of the “third speech cycle” was indeed a late addition to the book – later than the Elihu speeches – but that the vision was already part of the original form of the dialogues.199 As for 4:12–21, she acknowledges that it is ambivalent, but that even in its ambiguity it cannot be reconciled to Eliphaz’s position in 4:7–11 and elsewhere.200 Following Würthwein (1970) and Maag (1982), she concludes that the vision is a “foreign body” in Eliphaz’s speech, which Eliphaz himself only reflects in 5:6–7, with apparent criticism.201 Nevertheless, she maintains 196 Both 7:1–20aβb and 20:1–23aβb are again retained (WITTE, Leiden, 191). As for the parallels to the vision in Elihu’s speeches, WITTE, Leiden, 96, 174, initially took them as evidence that the Niedrigkeitsbearbeiter was familiar with Elihu, rather than vice versa. He supported this on the grounds that Elihu does not quote from the third speech cycle, while his expressions are paralleled by both the Niedrigkeits- and Gerechtigkeitsredaktion (174 n. 4). But the first point, if correct, would only show that the third speech cycle is secondary, not that the vision itself is, and the second point can more easily be taken to imply that Elihu is familiar with the vision than the other way around. Since the vision seems to be reflected, not just in 33:15, but also in 32:2 and throughout chs. 33–35, it is unlikely that 4:12–21 is later than the Elihu speeches. More recently, WITTE, Torah, 55, places the Niedrigkeitsredaktion before the Elihu speeches, but that raises additional problems, for why then does Elihu quote the vision to describe Job’s experience in ch. 33 and elsewhere? 197 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 57. She notes that it is not only taken up in 15:14–16, 25:4–6 and 33:15, but it also introduces the key term ‫צדק‬, and forms the basis for Job’s entire speech in ch. 9, not merely the first half. 198 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 57–58 n. 3; similarly, SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 95–100. 199 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 56–66, esp. 64–65; this is also accepted by SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 95–100. Unlike Witte, KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 65–66, hesitates to offer a detailed redactional reconstruction, simply acknowledging that the development of the second half of the book is likely to have been complex and drawn out. 200 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 194–96, cf. also 149 n. 5; 188. 201 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 149 n. 5, 188, 194–99. WÜRTHWEIN, Wort und Existenz, 233–39, recognizes that this is “eine Sonderstellung in der Anschauung der Freunde” (235) and a “Fremdkörper im Denken der Freunde” (239), and should not be allowed to obscure the central tenet of the friends’ view, which is the clear distinction between the righteous and the wicked (239). He does not think the tension is resolvable, but neither is he willing to accept a diachronic explanation (238), so he concludes that the friends bring in this

38

Introduction

that it is Eliphaz’s vision, and concludes that its distinctive viewpoint represents God’s interjection into the dialogue, which introduces a question that Job and his friends will each wrestle with in subsequent speeches: Can a mortal be righteous before God?202 That God’s appearance is left indirect and ambiguous in 4:12–16 is therefore deliberate, opening up space for the subsequent discussion.203 She also makes the important observation that 15:14–16 does not just reformulate 4:17–19, but draws directly on Job’s own words in 7:17 and 14:1 (she overlooks 9:30–31), and concludes that “15:14–16 is more basically an examination of Job’s statement concerning anthropology than an exact citation of the vision.”204 Where Job claims to be innocent, and uses the vision to complain of God’s injustice, Eliphaz uses the vision to dismiss the possibility of human righteousness.205 In all this, Köhlmoos’ understanding of the vision is refreshingly original, admitting both its tensions with its context and its importance to the subsequent dialogues. Her suggestion that it represents God’s ambiguous provocation is intriguing, as is her conclusion that 25:1–6 stems from a later hand than the original vision. But while she acknowledges that the vision is a “foreign body” in Eliphaz’s speech, she only recognizes part of the tension. It is not just the message of the vision that is at odds with Eliphaz’s own views; the form and tone of the account in 4:12–16 are as well. She too quickly dismisses the formal characteristics Witte noted. She misses entirely the emphasis on fear and confusion that are so distinctive of 4:12–16, and also so closely aligned with Job’s own style. Yet the most fundamental problem is the one she herself highlights but does not truly explain: that Job makes the first and most prominent use of the vision’s imagery, and even when Eliphaz quotes from it in 15:14–16, he does so using Job’s own words. While Köhlmoos is correct that the vision can neither be harmonized with Eliphaz’s views nor eliminated from the original additional bit of traditional wisdom to try and comfort Job, even though they themselves do not accept it: “Sie treten Hiob gegenüber mit einer aus der Tradition geschöpften Theologie, durch sie ihn zu Demut und Bescheidenheit bringen wollen, während sie ja selbst nicht mit jener Tradition in ihren eigenen Leben Ernst machen” (239). MAAG, Hiob, 140–43, also concludes “So müßte die Verwendung einer quasi-prophetischen Mitteilung innerhalb der Eliphas-Rede ein rätselhafter Fremdkörper bleiben” (143, cf. 140). 202 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 196, “So läßt sich die Vision des Eliphas als Eingriff Gottes in das Geschehen zwischen Hiob und den Freunden interpretieren, der neue Fragen aufwirft, die zwischen den Gesprächspartnern vorhandelt werden” (cf. also 199). 203 She compares this to the Satan’s provocative questions in the prologue (KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 196, following CLINES, Job, 1.133). She believes the scenes in heaven were added to the prologue by the author of the dialogues (KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 71–72). 204 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 250, cf. 250–252. “15:14–16 ist wesentlich eher eine Auseinandersetzung mit Hiobs Aussage zur Anthropologie als eine exakte Zitation der Vision” (250). Followed by SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 90–91. 205 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 251.

A. History of Research

39

form of the book, neither she nor the other redaction critics with whom she interacts give sufficient weight to the much closer links between this passage and the speeches of Job. IV. Is it Job’s Vision? Tur-Sinai (=Torczyner, 1920) was the first to argue that the vision must have originally appeared in one of Job’s speeches, and was only later displaced to its present location.206 His discussion is brief, but he identifies four key arguments: (1) The vision’s denial that any can be righteous undermines Eliphaz’s attempts to convince Job to trust that God will save the innocent, and contradicts the friends’ contrast between the fates of the righteous and the wicked. (2) The message of the vision is more closely related to Job’s argument in ch. 9 that God treats all alike as unrighteous, than to anything in chs. 4–5. (3) The fearful and confusing visionary account itself is better in keeping with Job’s usual manner of speaking (cf. esp. 7:13–14), than with Eliphaz’s firm and comforting tone elsewhere in the speech. And finally (4) the parallel in 15:14–16 is both introduced as the “words” of Job in 15:13, and directly rebutted by Eliphaz in 15:17–35. Tur-Sinai’s case drew early responses from König (1924), Fullerton (1930) and Baumgärtel (1933), but was largely ignored from that point on.207 Between them, the three challenge each of Tur-Sinai’s arguments: First, Fullerton admits that there is an apparent contradiction between the doctrine of retribution in 4:2–9 (he considers 4:10–11 secondary), and the doctrine of universal sin in 4:12–21, but he denies that the tension is significant: “if there is a contradiction here, it runs all through late post-Exilic Judaism…. Whether we can resolve this contradiction or not, both doctrines were held at one and the same time. It is better therefore to speak here of a paradox rather than a contradiction.”208 This misses the point. The problem is not whether retribution and universal sin can be reconciled in principle, but how these two doctrines are presented in the vision and in the rest of the book. Eliphaz directly challenges the very possibility that the innocent could ever “perish” in 4:7, which 4:19–21 holds out as the potential fate of all mortals. That is, Eliphaz 206 TORCZYNER, Hiob, 10–14, cf. 96–99. He further claims that 25:4–6 is displaced from Job’s speech in ch. 26, reversing the more common conclusion that 26:5–14 is displaced from Bildad’s speech in ch. 25 (181). 207 KÖNIG, Hiob, 4–6, 87–88; FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 263–69; BAUMGÄRTEL, Hiobdialog, 13–15, 95–96. Despite his rejection of this specific claim, Baumgärtel himself maintains a very similar overall approach to the book as Tur-Sinai, with whom he interacts extensively on a variety of issues (cf. esp. 6–7). WÜRTHWEIN, Wort und Existenz, 238 n. 55, accepts Baumgärtel’s critique, even though he also admits that the vision is a “Fremdkörper im Denken der Freunde” (239). 208 FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 267, cf. also KÖNIG, Hiob, 87–88.

40

Introduction

himself presents the ideas as contradictory, and the rest of the friends’ speeches insist on the same dichotomy that the vision repudiates. Fullerton has a better case against the second argument, however, as TurSinai ties it to a problematic claim that the vision itself affirms the same divine injustice that Job depicts in ch. 9.209 Fullerton is correct that that this is not explicit in the vision itself, but his own summary of the vision’s point is no more accurate: “What the text really means to do is not to criticize God but to magnify His transcendent purity.”210 If the point were merely to express a “profound reverence before the absolute purity of God,”211 the extended depiction of sudden ruin in 4:19–21 would not form its climax. TurSinai may go too far in claiming that the vision itself accuses God of injustice, but the text is open to such an interpretation, which Job makes explicit in ch. 9 and elsewhere. This is, in fact, a prime example of the very kind of “double entendre” that Fullerton himself finds elsewhere the book, especially in chs. 9–10.212 This same phenomenon also impacts his objection to Tur-Sinai’s third argument. Despite Fullerton’s emphasis on the double-edged nature of the vision, he asserts that the uncanny imagery in 4:12–16 is only meant “to lend impressiveness and solemnity to the following oracle, not to terrorize Job, and this is quite consistent with Eliphaz’s kindly attitude toward Job in verses 2–9.”213 But the account neither implies “solemnity” nor serves to “terrorize” Eliphaz’s listeners; it emphasizes the fear and uncertainty of the recipient, which is without parallel in the friends’ speeches, but common in Job’s. As for the possibility that 15:14–16 is a quotation of Job, Fullerton does not address the apparent citation formula in 15:12–13, dismissing Tur-Sinai’s 209 TORCZYNER, Hiob, 13, “Im Wortlaut des Textes steht aber nichts davon, daß der Mensch nicht gerecht sein könne, sondern geradezu daß Gott seinen Knechten nicht glaube.... Ganz wie in Hiobs Rede, Kap. 9, wird also im Gegenteil Gott der Ungerechtigkeit gegen Engel und Menschen geziehen” (emphasis original). He softens this in his later commentary (cf. TUR-SINAI, Job, 88–90). 210 FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 265; KÖNIG, Hiob, 88, and FOHRER, Hiob, 144 n. 22, raise the same objection. 211 FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 265. 212 FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 265. He further asks “What sort of a revelation is this which is supposed to teach the injustice of God, and who is the revealer?... What sort of a divine being is it that ventures to pass judgment on God? Is it the Satan? (!) When Job says, ‘Of a truth I know that this is so,’ [9:2a] can it really be believed that he is here approving a criticism of one divine being (God) by some other anonymous divine being? The incredibility of such a supposition is alone sufficient to make it impossible to take 4:12– 19b as the original introduction to 9:2ff.” Of course, other scholars have considered the possibility that the vision should be attributed to the Satan (e.g. FYALL, Eyes, 146–47, as discussed above), but regardless the subversiveness of the vision’s depiction is not less but more difficult to explain if it is attributed to Eliphaz. 213 FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 268–69.

A. History of Research

41

claim on the grounds that if 15:17–35 were a response to 15:14–16, we would expect Eliphaz to emphasize the protection of the righteous.214 Baumgärtel raises the same objection even though he acknowledges that 15:20–35 contradicts 15:14–16.215 This is an argument from silence. That Eliphaz goes on to emphasize the destruction of the wicked rather than the preservation of the righteous is in line with the rest of the second speech cycle. Eliphaz has already affirmed the latter in 4:2–7 and 5:8–27, and he will do so again in 22:21–30, so it is hardly necessary to repeat that in 15:17–35. Even without emphasizing the positive, the latter text’s reuse of the visionary’s own selfdescriptions to depict the destruction of the wicked (e.g. in 15:21) is a direct challenge to the vision’s message, as paraphrased in 15:14–16. In the end, though, it was not the purported weakness of Tur-Sinai’s arguments that led to his dismissal, but rather the way he framed the issue. Though many late 19th and early 20th century scholars embraced a diachronic approach to the difficulties in Job, Tur-Sinai’s initial commentary went further than most, claiming that the original manuscript of the book must have suffered some sort of extreme physical degradation, and was incorrectly restored by a later editor.216 His proposed relocation of the vision, therefore, is only the most prominent of a vast number of relocations, large and small. Indeed, he does not simply propose that the vision originally appeared in one of Job’s speeches; he also reorganizes the whole account on the level of halfverses.217 Aside from the specific details of this reconstruction, Dhorme rightly observes that the result of such a view can only be an eradicable subjectivity: “The Book of Job thus becomes a puzzle which each critic re-fashions as

214

FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 266. BAUMGÄRTEL, Hiobdialog, 95–97. He claims that the vision’s affirmation of universal sin also contradicts Job’s view, but this is not true of 4:17–21 itself, only of Eliphaz’s hyperbolic paraphrase in 15:14–16, which turns Job’s complaints into a self-accusation. He concludes that 15:14–16 is a late gloss, adding that neither 15:13 nor 8:10 have to be read as citation formulas – they could simply mean “to turn with words to someone” (96). But the question is not merely what is possible, but what is more probable, and the critique of Job’s exclusive divine knowledge in 15:2–8 and the blending of Job’s words with the vision in 15:14–16 support taking 15:13 as a citation formula. 216 TORCZYNER, Hiob, V–IX. 217 TORCZYNER, Hiob, 11, 14. His proposed “original” order is 4:13a+14a, 4:14b+15b, 4:15a+16b, 9:11 (!), 4:16a+c, 4:12, 4:17–19b*, all of which is said to have appeared before 9:2ff, which itself must have appeared somewhere earlier in the dialogues. He further takes 4:19c–21 as the original end of Eliphaz’s depiction of the wicked in 4:8–9 (4:10–11 are dismissed as secondary on other grounds, as was 5:1), from which it was separated by the secondary insertion of 4:12–19b (Hiob, 12). His decision to omit 4:19c–21 is especially odd, as it excludes one of the strongest points in favor of an attribution of the vision to Job: the depiction of indiscriminate destruction. 215

42

Introduction

he pleases.”218 The force of this objection is highlighted by a comparison with Buttenwieser’s 1922 commentary, which employs a similar approach, but comes to radically different conclusions about the “original” form of Job.219 It is not surprising, then, that few scholars even address Tur-Sinai’s specific proposal regarding 4:12–21, much less accept it.220 In the end, even Tur-Sinai largely abandoned this approach, sticking closer to the MT in his later commentary in Hebrew, which was translated into English and went through several revisions from the 1940s to the 1960s.221 By the final edition he still has a strong interest in reconstructing the “original” text, but devotes his attention not to large-scale rearrangements, but rather to detailed philological questions, which is where he made his widest impact on later scholarship.222 Despite this dramatic change in approach, however, he still maintains that the vision was originally attributed to Job, but he now proposes that 4:12–19 be read as Eliphaz’s quotation of Job, rather than that it is displaced from Job’s own speech.223 Unfortunately, his defense of this reading was no more successful than before, and had little impact at the time. 218

DHORME, Job, xlvii n.5; similarly, FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 269; KÖNIG, Hiob, 4–6; and cf. the more recent discussion of all such accidental displacement approaches in WITTE, Leiden, 25–36. 219 To take just one example, BUTTENWIESER, Job, 116, reconstructs Job’s first speech of the second speech cycle as 16:1–3; 17:1; 16:4–6; 29:2–6, 19–20, 18, 11, 7–10, 21–25; 30:9–10, 1; 16:10–11; 30:11; 16:7–8a (first word only); 17:7, 6; 16:8–9, 12–17; 30:28b; 16:18–22; 17:3–5, 12; 30:26; 17:11; 30:22; 17:1b-2; 30:24; 17:13–16. By contrast, TORCZYNER, Hiob, 119, agrees that the present form of chs. 16–17 is thoroughly scrambled, and that it should be linked with chs. 29–30, but instead of reconstructing the “original” from pieces of other speeches, he suggests that the final form of the speech itself has been mistakenly reconstructed from the following, originally widely separated, fragments: 16:2+4–5; 16:3; 16:6; 16:7–17+17:1+4+6+7+10–12; 16:22+17:1+13–16; 16:18–21+17:3; 17:5; 17:8–9. That there is almost no overlap between where the two scholars divide their fragments is sufficient proof of the extreme subjectivity of their method, but see the further critical comparisons of KÖNIG, Hiob, 6. 220 Even GILLISCHEWSKI, Die erste Elifaz-Rede, 294, who follows TORCZYNER, Hiob, 11, in dropping 4:13b and reorganizing the remaining bi-cola (4:13a+14a, 14b+15b, and 15a+16a), still dismisses his attribution of the vision to Job without argument, simply asserting that the vision is a “well-considered” excurses within Eliphaz’s speech (GILLISCHEWSKI, Die erste Elifaz-Rede, 292–93). 221 The Hebrew commentary was first published in 1941, then revised in 1954, translated into English in 1957, and then revised again in 1967. All citations are from the 1967 revised edition (TUR-SINAI, Job). 222 Cf. TUR-SINAI, Job, XL–LV. One of his key conclusions from this philological work is that much of the poetic dialogue (apart from the Elihu speeches) is a translation from an Aramaic original (XXX–XL). Few have followed him to that conclusion, but many of his individual emendations have been accepted by various scholars (e.g. the 2010 posthumous commentary of J. GRAY, Job, adopts a wide range of Tur-Sinai’s emendations). 223 TUR-SINAI, Job, LII, 88–91, 250–51, 376–77. Indeed, he claims that many of the texts that he previously explained by displacement, should instead be seen as extended

A. History of Research

43

Smith’s 1990 article is the only study to date to accept Tur-Sinai’s quotation theory,224 which he supports by noting the diverse ways in which quotations appear in the book, including without any kind of citation formula (e.g. 21:19a and 25:4–6).225 The advantage of this theory is that it offers to resolve the tension without reorganizing the text, but it is highly unnatural to read the whole of 4:12–21 as an implicit quotation. Smith’s own examples demonstrate this. None are anywhere near as long as 4:12–21, and they only ever quote – or more often paraphrase – the key points of their opponent’s views, never their full context and extent.226 It is still more difficult to imagine Eliphaz employing an extended quotation in the first person without any sort of introductory formula, particularly when the text purportedly quoted has not appeared earlier in the dialogue. Moreover, since Smith does not indicate whether he accepts Tur-Sinai’s diachronic reshuffling of the book, it is not clear what he means when he refers to “the ‘lost’ vision of Job.”227 Does he mean a passage that originally appeared in the book but was lost, or a vision that Job (the person) had in some earlier source (or in reality?), but which was only recorded in Eliphaz’s quotation?228 Both explanations would raise as many questions as they answered, and in the end there is no good reason to think that 4:12–21 is a quotation. Thus when Ginsberg himself attributed the vision to Job (1968; 1971), he returned to Tur-Sinai’s earlier displacement theory, though he made several modifications to it.229 First, he largely accepts Tur-Sinai’s rearrangement of 4:12–21, but proposes that its original position was at the end of ch. 3 rather than the beginning of ch. 9.230 He emphasizes that the fearful tone in 4:12–16 quotations. He still insists that the original text has been thoroughly scrambled; he simply abandons the attempt to reconstruct the original form in any detail (LIV-LV). 224 SMITH, Vision, 453–463. 225 SMITH, Vision, 457–460. 226 GINSBERG, Patient, 104, raised a similar objection to Tur-Sinai. 227 SMITH, Vision, 457. 228 SMITH, Vision, 462–63, explicitly speculates about Job’s thought-processes, but it is not clear whether he is simply speaking informally of the perspective attributed to Job by the author, or actually imagines that the book records excerpts from a real conversation. Regardless, we are left with no clear idea of what it is that Eliphaz is thought to be quoting, since the vision never appears on Job’s lips in the book as we have it. 229 His overarching theory is that there were originally two separate books, one of which depicts Job as entirely faithful (Job the Patient, which is preserved in the prose frame, 27:7b–17 and perhaps a few other short passages), and a second which reverses this image (Job the Impatient, which provided most of the poetic core of the book; cf. esp. GINSBERG, Patient, 88–111; idem, EncJud, 10:111–121 in the 1st ed. (1971), and 11.341–351 in the 2nd ed. (2007); subsequent references will follow the new edition, which also contains contributions from Gruber. 230 GINSBERG, Patient, 105–6. The only significant differences are that he retains 4:13b and 4:19c-20, where Tur-Sinai excluded them, but Ginsberg accepts the insertion of 9:11

44

Introduction

is much closer to that seen in ch. 3 than to anything in Eliphaz’s speeches, noting the use of ‫“( פחד‬dread”) in 3:25 and 4:14.231 Further, where Tur-Sinai dismisses 5:1 as secondary, Ginsberg instead sees it as part and parcel of Eliphaz’s response to the vision.232 He also sharpens several of Tur-Sinai’s other arguments, for instance emphasizing that if 15:14–16 were truly a reaffirmation of Eliphaz’s own view, that would mean that Eliphaz responds to Job’s claim that “one born of a woman” cannot be judged good (14:1–4) by insisting that “one born of a woman” cannot be judged good (15:14–16).233 Ginsberg’s defense of the theory had little impact at the time, but more recently there has been a surge of interest, particularly among Jewish scholars. It is embraced in a series of publications by Greenstein (1996; 2004; 2005; 2007) and Gruber (1998; 2003; 2007), and is also accepted with minimal discussion by Paul (1983) and Weinfeld (1997/98).234 Despite this burst of activity, however, few others have responded to the theory at all, and even then only briefly. Apart from the early responses by Gordis and Weiss, which go little beyond those by König and Fullerton,235 most simply dismiss or ignore the possibility of an attribution to Job.236 None of the recent commenafter 4:15 and the shift of 4:12 to after 4:16. He also ties this to a further rearrangement of ch. 3, reconstructing the “probable original order” as 3:3–4a, 5b, 4b-c, 5a, 5c, 6b-c, 7–8, 6a, 9–10, 16, 13–15, 17–19, 11–12, 20–24, 26, 25, 4:12–15, 9:11, 4:16, 12, 17–20 (105–6). This is unfounded and unnecessary; the vision complements ch. 3 perfectly well (perhaps better) without any such rearrangement of the verses. 231 GINSBERG, Patient, 105–7. 232 GINSBERG, Patient, 109. 233 GINSBERG, Patient, 102 n. r. He quips, “that Job claims to be without sin can only be believed by readers who were watching television while turning the pages of Job,” noting 7:20–21; 10:6; 13:26; 14:16–17. 234 GREENSTEIN, Forensic Understanding, 241–258, esp. 258; idem, Inspiration, 98– 110, esp. 105–7; idem, Extent, 245–262; idem, Skin, 63–77; GRUBER, Human and Divine, 88–102; idem, Jewish Study Bible, 1501–2, 1510–11; idem, Jewish Liturgy, 87–100; idem, EncJud, 11.342–356; PAUL, Hair Raising, 119–121, esp. 119 n. 1; WEINFELD, Partition, 222–25, esp. 223–24. 235 GORDIS, Job, 518–19, denies that there is any evidence of displacement, reaffirms that the vision teaches “only that all men are imperfect” (519), and objects that Job’s later demands for an answer from God prove he cannot have already heard from God (519, we will return to this last point below). WEISS, Bible from Within, 427–431, cf. 163–187, reaffirms König’s and Fullerton’s arguments and adds that 9:2 can be read as a response to Eliphaz’s vision rather than a reaffirmation of Job’s own, while 7:13–14, 6:10 and 33:6 need not refer to the vision. Though both of these books came out after Ginsberg’s work on the subject, Gordis overlooks it, while Weiss only briefly interacts with it (169 n. 18; 427), focusing on Tur-Sinai. 236 The 1999 article by CAESAR, New Thesis, 447, flatly rejects Tur-Sinai’s reading, without mentioning anyone more recent than Smith. The same is true of KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 188, who acknowledges that the vision is “nicht unproblematisch” in ch. 4, but rejects Tur-Sinai’s theory with an appeal to Gordis (188 n. 3). As recently as 2008,

A. History of Research

45

taries in German or English even mention the theory, much less address its strengths and weaknesses.237 Greenstein’s writings in particular have yet to receive any published response.238 The two fullest recent responses to the theory are by Notter (2004) and Johnson (2009), neither of whom devotes more than two pages to the subject nor interacts with any discussion more recent than Smith’s. Notter simply summarizes Tur-Sinai’s and Smith’s views alongside several other perspectives on the vision, and concludes without argument that she finds no grounds to deny that it is Eliphaz’s vision.239 Johnson admits that Smith offers some strong arguments – especially regarding 5:1 – but confidently asserts that “there is absolutely no indication in the text that this is Job’s vision.”240 His only explicit counter-argument is that “Smith’s interpretation still presupposes that Job is claiming to be righteous, even if that presupposition is based on one’s knowledge of how the story will develop,” but he does not clarify why this should be a problem for the attribution of the vision to Job.241 In fact, the point of dispute between Job and his friends centers not on whether a human SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 53 n. 164, dismisses Tur-Sinai’s suggestion without addressing his arguments, nor even mentioning Ginsberg or Smith, much less Greenstein or Gruber. From 2010, HARDING, Metaprophecy, 542–43 n. 29, does at least address Gruber’s formulation, though still only in a footnote, but does not account for Greenstein’s discussions. The 2012 article by PINKER, Job 4,18, 500–519, also devotes only a single footnote to the issue (517 n. 69), citing Tur-Sinai, Ginsberg and Smith, but dismissing them with an appeal to Weiss. Similarly, JOHNSON, Eye, 117–18, discusses only Smith’s formulation of the theory, quickly dismissing it, as does NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 48–49, 56. 237 The possibility that the vision was not (originally) attributed to Eliphaz is not even mentioned in the recent commentaries by GRADL, Ijob, 83–87, cf. 14–20; BALENTINE, Job, 106–116, cf. 13–18; J. GRAY, Job, 148–49, cf. 56–75, LONGMAN, Job, 118–121, cf. 24–27, and SEOW, Job, 380–411, cf. 26–39 (though the latter does list GREENSTEIN, Forensic Understanding, in the ch. 4 bibliography). Even the massive three-volume commentary by CLINES, Job, neither discusses the possibility (1.128–137, cf. 1.lvi-lix), nor lists GINSBERG, Patient, 88–111, in the chapter bibliography (cf. 1.140), though it does appear in the comprehensive bibliography (1.c). Even the supplemental bibliographies in volume 3, published in 2011, only add SMITH, Vision, 453–463, continuing to omit Greenstein’s and Gruber’s publications on the subject (cf. CLINES, Job, 3.1248, 1251–52). 238 This may be due, in part, to the fact that his fullest defense of the theory appeared in Modern Hebrew, and has not yet been translated (GREENSTEIN, Extent, 245–262). SCHMID, Schriftdiskussion, 253–54 n. 42, does summarize the latter article without critique, only noting that if Greenstein were correct the ambivalence of the book’s depiction of prophecy would be even greater, not less. He is exactly right. 239 NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 48–49. 240 JOHNSON, Eye, 118, cf. 117. 241 JOHNSON, Eye, 118. Presumably, this alludes to the objection repeated by FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 265; KÖNIG, Hiob, 88; BAUMGÄRTEL, Hiobdialog, 96; and GORDIS, Job, 519, that the vision’s affirmation of universal sin conflicts with Job’s claims to innocence, but as we have seen, this presupposes an overly narrow reading of the vision.

46

Introduction

can be righteous, but rather on God’s treatment of humanity. That is, both sides agree that humans can be righteous (which is not to say sinless); where they are intractably opposed is over whether God will allow a righteous person to be destroyed.242 In that dispute, the depiction of indiscriminate destruction in 4:19–21 is much closer to Job’s position than the friends. Yes, Job claims to be righteous, but he insists that God does not acknowledge human righteousness, on the basis of the vision itself. If these are the most recent repudiations of the theory, what do its more recent defenders contribute to it? Gruber appeals to several medieval Jewish liturgies that he believes support an original attribution of the vision to Job.243 The earliest of these texts, Unetanneh Tokef, may go back to the 6th century CE, and Gruber claims that its use of the vision to appeal to God’s mercy during the penitential season, “was inspired by a recension of the Book of Job in which, as in Tur-Sinai’s restoration, Job 4:12–21 and Job 25:2–6 were attributed to Job and not Eliphaz and Bildad respectively.”244 He concludes that the author, at least of the first of these liturgies, must have had access to such a manuscript of Job, which is now lost to us, because “It is inconceivable that the liturgy would repeatedly quote or allude to the central rhetorical question found in Job 4:17 were this question… construed in liturgical tradition as a justification for punishing rather than as a defense of Job/humankind.”245 This argument is not compelling. It is likely that these liturgies allude to Job 4:17–19, as well as 15:14–16 and 25:4–6, as part of their appeals for divine mercy, but it does not follow that this presupposes an awareness that the vision was Job’s. The claim that the liturgy’s positive use of the vision implies an attribution to Job ignores the presence of other positive allusions to the friends’ speeches. For instance, Unetanneh Tokef itself describes hu242

As GINSBERG, Patient, 109, puts it: “Just as Job is as aware as his friends that he is not impeccable, so they are as firmly convinced as he that he is a good man. What the parties differ about is not Job’s character but his theory.” This overstates the case, as the friends seem to reconsider their assessment of Job’s character by the end of the dialogues (see esp. ch. 22), but even if they reconsider Job’s righteousness, they nowhere else doubt that human righteousness is possible. Ginsberg notes that Job does not claim to be sinless, only that God refuses to pardon and takes no account of the severity of sin (cf. e.g. 7:17– 21; 13:26; 14:15–22; Patient 102). 243 GRUBER, Human and Divine, 93; GINSBERG AND GRUBER, EncJud, 11.352–53; GRUBER, Jewish Study Bible, 1510–11, though he only discusses them in detail in idem, Jewish Liturgy, 87–100. 244 GRUBER, Liturgy, 99. Unetanneh Tokef is attested by an 8th C. Genizah manuscript, but has been traced back to the 6th C. (92–93 n. 23). He admits that the later liturgies, all of which are associated with the Day of Atonement and the New Year’s Festival, are probably dependent upon the tradition begun by Unetanneh Tokef, and need not have been independently aware of an alternative manuscript tradition of Job (97–98). 245 GRUBER, Liturgy, 92, cf. 97–99.

A. History of Research

47

man beings as “the cloud that vanishes, the breeze that blows, the dust that floats, the dream that flies away.”246 The last clause is ‫כחלום יעוף‬, alludes to Job 20:8, “Like a dream he flies away [‫]כחלום יעוף‬, and they do not find him, he is chased away like a vision of the night.” This is from Zophar’s speech, and describes the destruction of “the wicked” (20:5), yet the liturgy incorporates it into a description of humankind in general, in an appeal for divine mercy. This demonstrates that the liturgist was fully capable of quoting from the friends, whether in line with their intent or not, so the allusions to 4:17– 19 offer no proof that Unetanneh Tokef attributes the vision to Job. Second, Gruber’s claim that the liturgy corresponds to Job’s viewpoint over-against the friends is simply false. Unetanneh Tokef assumes a perspective that is much closer to the friends’ view of divine-human relations than to Job’s or the vision’s. For instance, just before its allusion to 4:19, it reads “Thou [=God] hast no desire for anyone to die, but that he turn from his evil way and live. Thou dost wait for him until his dying day; if he repents, thou dost readily accept him.”247 This emphasis on the need for repentance and divine forbearance is precisely what the friends affirm (e.g. 5:8–27; 22:21– 30), yet it is entirely absent from the vision, which concludes not with an appeal for mercy, but with an uncompromising depiction of sudden human destruction.248 Despite Gruber’s claims, therefore, these liturgies do not appear to offer any concrete external evidence for a manuscript tradition in which the vision appeared in ch. 3. Nevertheless, Gruber is correct that the manuscript tradition as a whole demonstrates that differences of order did exist in the textual history of other biblical books.249 Though we lack manuscript evidence for this in the case of the vision, we know it was at least a possibility, and the internal evidence for an attribution of the vision to Job remains compelling. The fullest account of that evidence is found in an article by Greenstein, in Modern Hebrew, who also notes changes of order in other biblical books, but does not appeal to Gruber’s liturgies.250 Greenstein consolidates and refines the arguments of Tur-Sinai, Ginsberg and Smith to make the following case: (1) Eliphaz does not base his arguments on the vision, but is instead dis-

246 Also quoted by GRUBER, Liturgy, 94, from BIRNBAUM, Prayer Book, 794, without discussing this portion of the text. Hebrew in BIRNBAUM, Prayer Book, 793. 247 BIRNBAUM, Prayer Book, 794, quoted by GRUBER, Jewish Liturgies, 94. 248 That these medieval liturgies ignore that and incorporate the vision into a prayer that God preserve the penitent is only one of many examples of a tendency in both Jewish and Christian circles to downplay or reinterpret Job’s most subversive elements (see Chapter Five, Section B below). 249 GRUBER, Liturgy, 98–99; see Chapter Three, Section C.IV below. 250 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 245–262, esp. 260–262. He also briefly summarizes these arguments in several English articles that focus on other topics (cf. n. 234 above).

48

Introduction

missive of angels and private revelations (5:1; 15:4–8).251 (2) Eliphaz rejects the vision’s claim that God finds fault with human beings merely because they are human, insisting on the doctrine of retribution.252 (3) “Job, however, refers to revelation by one of the angels with dignity and pride” in 6:10, and complains of bad dreams in 7:13–14.253 (4) Job often reuses language from the vision elsewhere, and builds on its two main ideas throughout his speeches: that human beings are lacking in God’s eyes, and that they are fragile and short-lived.254 (5) The vision is quoted by the friends as the words of Job in 15:12–16, and probably also in 25:4–6 and 33:15.255 On this basis, Greenstein’s two most original contributions are to argue that the vision both fits and completes Job’s speech in ch. 3, and to suggest how it could have been accidentally displaced to ch. 4. Regarding the first, he argues that the vision balances out the speech, complementing the curse in 3:3–9, explaining Job’s complaints in 3:23 and 3:25, and creating a frame between the exclamation “perish the day” in 3:3 and the conclusion that mortals “perish forever” in 4:20. He also notes that this would resolve the oddity that chs. 3–5 are the only place in the book where Job’s speech is shorter than his friend’s response – a transfer of 4:12–21 to ch. 3 would leave the two speeches roughly equal in length.256 As for how the shift could have occurred, Greenstein avoids the atomistic rearrangements of TurSinai and Ginsberg, instead suggesting that at some early stage the book could have been recorded in a papyrus scroll in which 4:1–11 and 4:12–21 each occupied successive pages. If the seams of the manuscript came apart, he suggests, the two passages could have been accidentally swapped, similarly to the displacements many find in the third speech cycle.257 Greenstein’s case for an original attribution of the vision to Job is strong, and in later chapters I will extend his arguments and offer further evidence in its favor. Additionally, it seems likely that the original position of the vision was indeed at the end of ch. 3, and that 4:12–21 is not a quotation of Job by Eliphaz, though 15:14–16 almost certainly is. None of those who reject the 251

GREENSTEIN, Extent, 246–48. GREENSTEIN, Extent, 246–47. 253 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 248, my translation ( ‫ מתייחס להתגלות מאת אחד‬,‫ לעומת זאת‬,‫איוב‬ ‫ ;)מהמלאכים בכבוד ובגאווה‬see also idem, Skin, 67. 254 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 249–251, 258. 255 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 254–57; he also overviews the range of ways that text can be quoted in the book, to show that while 4:12–21 cannot plausibly be read as a quotation, 15:14–16 and 25:4–6 can be. 256 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 258–260. 257 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 261–2, follows Rofe in suggesting that a parallel might be found in Deut 31:23–27, which has most likely been displaced from between 31:15 and 16. Though only 4 verses, its total length (80 words) is very close to that of Job 4:1–11 and 4:12–21 (76 and 75 words respectively). 252

A. History of Research

49

theory have adequately accounted for this evidence, much less convincingly refuted it. As we will see, both the content of the vision itself and nearly every subsequent allusion to it strongly link it to Job’s perspective, not Eliphaz’s. Nevertheless, there are several aspects of Greenstein’s analysis that are questionable. First, while his explanation for how the vision could have been transferred to ch. 4 is less problematic than the previous alternatives, it still requires far too much coincidence to be satisfactory. In principle, such a swap of two pages of a papyrus scroll may be possible, but only if the manuscript happened to have just the right size and format, if the passages in question fit exactly on two consecutive pages, and if those two pages happened to come apart on both sides.258 Further, the similar disruptions in chs. 24–27 do support the suggestion that the vision has also been displaced, but they undermine the claim that this occurred accidentally, as they themselves relate directly to the interpretation of the vision, and mirror its present attribution to Eliphaz. As we will see, this strongly suggests that these disruptions are not coincidental at all, but deliberate. Why such shifts might have been undertaken will be explored later, but it relates to a further objection first raised against Tur-Sinai by Gordis, for which none of the current defenses of the theory have accounted. Gordis objects that the revelatory nature of the vision is out of keeping with Job’s later wish that God would respond to him.259 This will remain a problem for the reading as long as it is assumed that the vision is a straightforward revelation that supports Job’s viewpoint. For instance, Gruber claims that the point of the vision’s denial of retribution is to confirm that Job’s suffering is not deserved: [T]he dream vision is part of the attempt to justify Job’s claim that the inability of mortals to be sinless is no explanation for Job’s incredible suffering. Rather, the truth revealed in the dream vision requires God both to relieve Job of his physical suffering and to defend Job in face of the verbal assault by his three friends.260

258

Because the pages of a scroll are attached end to end rather than bound on one side, a single page cannot simply fall out and be reinserted in the wrong place. Both 4:1–11 and 4:12–21 would have to have filled consecutive pages fully, then not only the seam between them but also those on either side must all come apart at once to allow an exchange to occur. Meanwhile, the similar disruptions in chs. 24–27 may provide an analogy, but it also increases the number of convenient page breaks that must be assumed, as all examples proposed there also either begin or end at a section break (26:2–14; 27:13–23), or are too short to correspond to the page size Greenstein proposes in ch. 4 (24:18–24; 25:2–6; 27:7– 12, if any of the latter are thought to be displaced). 259 GORDIS, Job, 518–19. 260 GRUBER, Liturgy, 91–92; cf. idem, Human and Divine, 88–102, where he goes so far as to claim that this denial of retribution represents genuine biblical orthodoxy, while the friends’ insistence that there is a clear link between righteousness and prosperity, wickedness and destruction, is “the pseudo-wisdom typical of Egypt and the Kedemites” (101).

50

Introduction

Such a reading runs counter to Job’s subsequent accusations and demand that God answer his charges, for if Gruber were correct, God has already answered in the vision. But the problem is not with the attribution of the vision to Job, as Gordis claims, but with its interpretation. While Gruber is surely correct that 4:17–21 implies that destruction can fall on anyone – even those considered righteous – Job himself interprets it as proof of the inescapability of judgment, not a sign that God will eventually exonerate the suffering. The denial of strict retribution cuts both ways: It means that those who suffer are not necessarily guilty, but it also means that there is no guarantee that the innocent will be rescued from death. Job sees primarily the latter in this vision, and strongly objects to it. Greenstein better recognizes this, emphasizing that the most basic link between the vision and Job’s perspective is the assumption that God accepts no one’s righteousness, and that humans can be quickly destroyed.261 Yet Greenstein’s own claim that Job appeals to the vision in 6:10 “with respect and pride,”262 is equally problematic, giving too little weight to the fact that Job’s appeals are inevitably accusatory, including in 6:8–13 itself. Job is not proud of the vision, and he does not present it as the answer to his problem, though he does appeal to it to justify his complaints. Instead, he sees it as the foremost proof of his condemnation, which is entirely in keeping with the tone of the vision itself. Third, while Tur-Sinai and his followers appeal to the various quotations and allusions to the vision to support an attribution to Job, the only ones that they discuss in detail are 9:2 and 15:14–16. The others are passed over quickly, with only minimal attention paid to their larger contexts or to how Job and the friends use those allusions as part of their arguments. Weiss objected on these grounds, noting that when Job quotes the vision in 9:2, he does not simply repeat its point; he uses it to accuse God.263 This is correct, but it does not show that the vision is Eliphaz’s, as Weiss thinks. After all, the shift from 4:17 to 9:2 is by no means a rejection, but rather a reinterpretation of the message of the vision, drawing out the disturbing implications that Job sees in it, namely that God’s judgment is indiscriminate and inescapable.264 We 261

GREENSTEIN, Extent, 249–251, 258. GREENSTEIN, Extent, 248. 263 WEISS, Bible from Within, 429. He objects that Job’s adjustment of ‫“( מאלוה‬in the sight of God”) to ‫“( עם־אל‬in dispute with God”) confirms that 9:2 does not merely reaffirm 4:17, but turns it around, and notes that the chiastic reversal of 4:17 in 9:2 implies a quotation. That is true, but it is no argument against an attribution of the vision to Job. The message in 4:17 is not the visionary’s word, but rather that which “my ear received” (4:12), so it is entirely plausible for Job to quote from his own vision in such a way. 264 As TUR-SINAI, Job, 154, already noted, it makes more sense to imagine that Job appeals to his own vision in response to Bildad’s dismissal of it (cf. 8:2–7), than that he ignores Bildad’s speech entirely and instead responds to Eliphaz’s vision from five chap262

B. Need for Further Research

51

will see that the same is true of most of Job’s other allusions as well. Job is profoundly disturbed by the vision, and approaches it from a number of angles in his speeches, most of them critical. Similarly, even the friends are not unified in their perspectives on the vision, and respond to it in different ways. Therefore it is necessary to consider how each of the book’s allusions to the vision respond to it, not simply whether they do. None of the previous studies on the vision, from any perspective, have examined these subsequent allusions in any detail. When we do so, we find that the dispute between Job and his friends over both this vision specifically, and the nature and possibility of revelation generally, is much more complex than is generally assumed.

B. Need for Further Research B. Need for Further Research

Of the four primary tensions surrounding the vision, none of the above approaches address more than one or two of them. Those who see the vision as a straightforward element in Eliphaz’s argument provide a range of valuable insights into the details of the text, but too lightly dismiss or ignore its tensions. Meanwhile those who acknowledge the vision’s internal ambiguities generally also recognize its tensions with its current context in chs. 4–5, but pay little attention to the ways that Job’s and the friends’ later speeches reflect the same ill-fit. Redactional theories, on the other hand, emphasize the tensions between the vision and its context, and those between the third speech cycle and the earlier portions of the book, but miss the vision’s internal tensions and generally underestimate its prominent role in the first two speech cycles. Finally, while Tur-Sinai and his followers recognize that the vision both fits poorly in Eliphaz’s speech and is associated with Job in the subsequent dialogue, they underestimate how subversive the vision itself is, and how thoroughly the third speech cycle shifts the disputants’ perspectives on it. Thus, despite the wide range of literature on the vision, no compelling synthesis has been offered. There has never even been a sustained effort to bring these diverse approaches into dialogue. This study will attempt to meet that need, drawing insights from each of them, to offer a more comprehensive view of the vision’s complex and contested role in the book. With Tur-Sinai and his followers, it will be argued that much of the book presupposes that the vision was originally attributed to Job. This will be supported with a thorough examination of the form and content of the vision itself, which will be seen to be fully in keeping with Job’s own style and stance, and radically opposed to the friends. Greenstein’s case for an original position in ch. 3 is especially compelling, and will be defended at length. ters previously. Tur-Sinai unnecessarily ties this to an argument that 9:2 cannot be the real beginning of the speech, but the point stands.

52

Introduction

At the same time, however, Fullerton and his followers are correct that this is no straightforward vision. The ambivalence of its language has been helpfully elucidated by Harding and others, yet none of those who attribute the vision to Job have emphasized its critical undertones. Though they rightly note that the fear mentioned in 4:14 fits Job’s attitude better than Eliphaz’s, they overlook the indications of judgment on the recipient. But if the vision is indeed Job’s, such a depiction is very fitting on his lips, and can further explain why he continues to wish for an answer from God. If the vision is not a straightforward revelation, but rather itself seen as an act of judgment – comparable to God’s sending a “spirit of falsehood” against Ahab and his prophets in 1 Kgs 22 – it is not surprising that Job demands an explanation in his subsequent speeches. He has been condemned, but the vision is a sign of that condemnation, not an explanation of it. Similarly, while a great deal has been written on this vision itself, the various allusions and quotations to it later in the book have not yet received sustained attention. Potential allusions to the vision are found in every speech of the first cycle, and several later ones, with many of these playing key roles in their contexts.265 Every single speaker in the dialogues quotes or alludes to the vision at least twice, while Job makes by far the most sustained use of it, yet these allusions have never been studied on their own terms. Most studies on the vision pass over these quickly, if they mention them at all. The commentaries, meanwhile, sometimes note links between individual passages and the vision, but do not attempt to synthesize them. Even those who appeal to these passages to support an attribution of the vision to Job spend surprisingly little space discussing how they take up and respond to it. Because of this, the complexity of the vision’s role in the debate between Job and his friends has not been fully appreciated. In fact, a number of scholars have appealed to the vision – whether attributed to Eliphaz or Job – to support simple dichotomies between Job and his friends regarding the value of revelation. For instance, Harding sees in the book an implicit critique of prophetic claims, as embodied by Eliphaz and his vision.266 On the other side, Greenstein contrasts Job’s appeals to personal, corporeal experience and revelation with the friends’ appeals to general experience and tradition.267 Both see important parts of the picture, yet end in oversimplifications, as Job and his friends adopt a range of perspectives on revelation in general and this vision in particular. 265 E.g. Job 7:14; 9:2; 14:1–4, 16–20; 15:14–16; 20:2–8; 25:4–6; 33:12–17; cf. also 6:10; 8:2–3; 11:10–11; 22:2–3; 32:2; 35:2; 40:8; 42:5. 266 HARDING, Metaprophecy, 523–547. 267 GREENSTEIN, Skin, 63–77. More extremely, GITAY, Failure, 239–250, contrasts Job’s “humanistic” language with the “religious” dialogue of the friends, while GRUBER, Human and Divine, 88–102, claims that Job’s vision represents genuine biblical orthodoxy, while the friends’ “Gentile” and “human wisdom” is rejected.

C. Assumptions and Approach

53

Finally, even if Witte’s and Köhlmoos’ reconstructions of the diachronic development of the book must be modified in light of an original placement of vision in ch. 3, they are correct that at least some of the shifts we see involving the vision more likely resulted from deliberate redaction than from purely accidental displacement. In that context, a new understanding of the purpose of 25:2–6 is required, as this has not been adequately elucidated either by those who attribute the vision to Job or by those who do not. Köhlmoos is correct that ch. 25 represents a very different perspective on the vision than is seen earlier in the book, but this is all the more the case if the vision was originally attributed to Job. At the same time, the stark reversals of Job’s position in 26:2–14 and 27:13–23 are unlikely to be original to Job’s speeches, nor accidentally displaced there, but how and why they came to their present locations requires further examination in light of the final shaping of the book as a whole, and its earliest reception history. The goal of this thesis is to explore the full range of the vision’s role in the development of the book, synchronically and diachronically. It will be seen that the vision not only introduces the central question that drives the dialogues – Is there any reliable link between sin and suffering, virtue and vindication? – but it also drives much of its argument. The vision stands at the center of Job’s complaint, it is repeatedly challenged by his friends, it forms the basis for their final concession to Job, and it has been deliberately reinterpreted, reattributed, and reframed by the book’s final redactors. In short, the vision is the touchstone for the whole Joban dialogue.

C. Assumptions and Approach C. Assumptions and Approach

Before summarizing the argument as a whole, a few words should be said concerning the presuppositions and methodology of this study. We will focus on two primary issues: the importance of attending to both the synchronic and diachronic aspects of the book’s composition, and the analysis of “intertextual” links both within Job and between Job and other biblical texts. I. The Composition and Unity of Job The background of Job is notoriously difficult to pin down. The literary setting established in the prose frame suggests a long-distant past, but the details are indistinct, perhaps intentionally so.268 It is possible that a story about a 268 Cf. e.g. POPE, Job, XXXII–XXXIII; SEOW, Job, 46–47. My concern is not with the “historical” background to the book, whether that be taken to refer to the setting it describes or that from which it arose. Those are legitimate questions, though not always answerable, but the focus here will be on the ways the text itself portrays its characters, engages with its sources, and represents or repudiates particular theological positions.

54

Introduction

pious sufferer named Job predates the book (cf. Ezek 14:14, 20), but the relation between such a legend and the canonical book is open to debate.269 It need not be assumed that the book is based solely on such a legend, as works comparable to the dialogue are also known from elsewhere in the ancient Near East, the closest parallels being the Babylonian Theodicy and Ludlul bēl nēqemi (“I will praise the Lord of Wisdom”).270 Nor should we be too quick to dismiss the prose frame as primitive – despite its superficially simple narrative, it also raises serious questions that are subsequently drawn out in the dialogues.271 The date of composition for both the book as a whole and its constituent parts is no less controversial, with suggestions ranging from the second millennium to the second century BCE. Despite occasional attempts to defend an early date, however, the final form of the book is unlikely to be earlier than the post-exilic period, and it is probable that even its core derives from the Whether there really was a Job who lived in Uz, or whether 4:12–21 recounts a “real” vision that someone actually had – Job, Eliphaz, or even the author – are not my concerns. Thus, when I ask whether the vision is a “genuine revelation,” I am not asking whether God actually appeared to the speaker (assumed to be a historical person); I am asking whether the text portrays the vision to be genuinely revelatory, or whether it implies that the vision is in some way deceptive, misapprehended or otherwise illegitimate. 269 Cf., e.g. ZUCKERMAN, Silent, 13–24; NEWSOM, Contest, 36–41. On Ezekiel’s references to Job, see most recently, JOYCE, Even If, 118–128. 270 J. GRAY, Job, 5–20; cf. also NEWSOM, Contest, 72–83; SEOW, Job, 51–56; MATTINGLY, Pious Sufferer, 305–348; WEINFELD, Mesopotamian Parallels, 217–26; MÜLLER, Keilschriftliche Parallelen, 136–151; SEDLMEIER, Auseinandersetzungsliteratur, 85–136. The Babylonian Theodicy offers the closest formal parallel to the dialogue between the sufferer and his friends in Job 3–27, while Ludlul bēl nēqemi, though not a dialogue, parallels many aspects of Job’s complaints. The latter also attributes dreams and visions to the sufferer, both as a sign of his suffering (I.54, cf. I.49–57), and to announce his restoration (III.8–46; for the text, see ANNUS AND LENZI, Ludlul. HABEL, Job, 163, and GREENSTEIN, Extent, 248–49, note the latter parallel. Strangely, though LENZI, Curious Case, 63–66, concludes his discussion of Ludlul with an explicit comparison to Job that emphasizes both texts’ challenges to strict retribution, he ignores Job 4:12–21). It need not be assumed that the Joban poet had either of these specific texts in view – though that is possible – but he or she was probably familiar with texts like them. Moving in the other direction, JOHNSON, Eye, has recently attempted to link Job with early apocalyptic traditions, and claims that the book as a whole should be classified as “proto-apocalyptic.” The important role that revelatory visions play in much apocalyptic literature supports such an association, and the links between the Testament of Job and early apocalyptic traditions point in the same direction. Nevertheless, while Johnson’s approach highlights important aspects of the text that can be obscured when Job is simply classified as “wisdom literature,” his attempt to classify the book as “proto-apocalyptic” is problematic. NEWSOM, Contest, passim, is probably correct that the book deliberately juxtaposes several distinct genres, which have been allowed – perhaps even intended – to implicitly contrast and critique one another (cf. also NEWSOM, Spying, 19–30). 271 Cf. LINAFELT, Undecidability, 154–71; SPIECKERMANN, Satanisierung, 431–444.

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Persian period, at the end of the sixth century or later.272 It is not necessary to settle the matter here. Though affinity with and perhaps dependence on a wide range of biblical literature will be suggested at various points in the following study, the core argument for an original attribution of the vision to Job would be compatible with virtually any date for the book. More important to the current project is the unity or compositional history of Job. The possibility that the text has undergone at least some secondary development has been widely accepted since the 19th century, but many recent studies downplay the importance of such diachronic questions. Even in Germany, where several recent monographs have explored Job’s redactional history,273 other studies have focused on the final form, as virtually all recent English-language monographs have done.274 The same is true of the commentaries that have appeared in the last 15 years: Only Strauß, Kaiser, John Gray and Clines continue to devote significant attention to diachronic questions.275 Ebach, Gradl and Balentine also admit that the book has developed, but confine their discussions of such issues to their introductions, explicitly setting them aside in the bodies of their commentaries.276 Newsom refers to single authorship (except for the Elihu speeches) as a “heuristic fiction,” which she 272 Contra DE MOOR, Origin of Job, 225–257, who denies that the core of the book is post-exilic and suggests that it may even go back in some form to a pre-Israelite composition. POPE, Job, XXXII-XL, also rejects many of the arguments commonly advanced to support a late date, though he still provisionally dates the book to the 7th C. BCE. J. GRAY, Job, 32–38, and SEOW, Job, 39–47, have recently made a strong case for a Persian period dating of both the prologue and the poetic core, emphasizing among other details that the closest parallel to the figure of the Satan is in the 6th C. (or later) vision in Zech 3, the dialogues boast numerous substantive links to other 6th C. biblical literature such as Deutero-Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the description of a lead and stone inscription in 19:23–24 could reflect familiarity with the well-publicized Behistun inscription of Darius the Great (dated 515 BCE). 273 E.g. SYRING, Anwalt, focused on the prologue; PILGER, Erziehung, and LAUBER, Weisheit, both focused on Elihu; NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, on the original dialogues; HECKL, Hiob, on the relation between prose and poetry in Job. WANKE, Praesentia Dei, is more thematic, focused on how God’s power is portrayed, but this is still built on a thoroughgoing redactional reconstruction. SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, is much less concerned with diachronic questions, but still argues that the third speech cycle (particularly chs. 24– 27) is the result of secondary redactional expansion. 274 E.g. NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 9–11; G. KAISER AND MATHYS, Hiob, 5–8; ENGLJÄHRINGER, Streitgespräch, 11–12. Such an approach has also been adopted by many recent English monographs on Job, e.g. FYALL, Eyes, 18–20; NEWSOM, Contest, 6–7; NAM, Talking About God, 21, 42, 49; PYEON, Intertextuality, 1–2; MAGDALENE, Scales, 9–11; JOHNSON, Eye, 1; JONES, Rumors, 1–3, 234–35, 241–44; KYNES, My Psalm, 33–34. 275 STRAUSS, Hiob, has no introduction, but cf. 73–74, 81–89, 103–5; O. KAISER, Hiob, 99–127; J. GRAY, Job, 56–75; CLINES, Job, vol. 2 also lacks an introduction, but substantially rearranges Job 21–37. 276 Cf. EBACH, Streiten, 1.XII-XIII; GRADL, Ijob, 14–20; BALENTINE, Job, 13–18.

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adopts for the sake of interpretation.277 Longman allows that the book may have developed, but denies that there can be any conclusive proof, and finds the question unimportant.278 Seow goes the furthest, rejecting several of the most commonly defended disjunctions in the book, and concluding that none are necessary or well-supported: There are all sorts of literary tensions within the book. Hence, instead of performing textual surgeries to suit modern preconceptions of coherence, it is necessary to give the ancient narrator-poet the benefit of the doubt and to grapple with those dissonances and asymmetry that may well be part of how the book means.279

This is a legitimate concern, as many diachronic reconstructions do move too quickly from the recognition of inconsistency to a denial of unity. When every mixed metaphor, change in grammatical form, or difference in traditional background is thought to indicate a diachronic disruption, we both underestimate the complexity of the human mind, and short-circuit the process of interpretation.280 Writers are not fully consistent, and poets least of all, so we must indeed guard against the danger of remaking the text according to our own conceptions of consistency. Tur-Sinai’s atomistic reconstruction represents an extreme case of such an approach, but even the more cautious reconstructions by Witte and others sometimes fall prey to such a danger. Especially in a book like Job, which is not only a dialogue, but one in which the central character often contradicts himself, we cannot assume that every inconsistency results from a gloss or new redactional layer.281 Despite all of that, however, the evidence that the book has developed is significant, as even most of those who set such questions aside admit. Seow’s own response emphasizes that tensions are widespread in the book, and his attempt to reduce all of this to mere literary artifice is not convincing. For 277 NEWSOM, Contest, 16, cf. 6–7; she drew more explicitly on diachronic explanations in her earlier commentary (idem, Job, 320–25). 278 LONGMAN, Job, 26, cf. 24–27. 279 SEOW, Job, 38, cf. 26–39. He does not mention the issues that have been raised concerning 4:12–21. 280 NEWSOM, Contest, 165; cf. also GORDIS, Book of God, 169–172; SEITZ, FullStructure, 5–17. The latter admits that the book may have developed (10), but argues that a focus on reconstructing its composition history obscures the theological import of its present structure. This can be the case, but need not be. 281 DHORME, Job, cx, compares such approaches to a florist who sets about dismantling flower arrangements in order to divide up their components according to type. For a humorous argumentum ad absurdum, see CLINES, Pooh Studies, 830–39, who notes that similar methods could be used to prove that Whiney the Pooh is also the result of a long process of composition by multiple hands. Despite this caution, however, Clines himself by no means denies that Job and other biblical books have developed diachronically (cf. CLINES, Job, 1.lvi-lix). Like him, I am dubious of attempts to divide up the text at a verseby-verse level, but remain convinced that there are certain cases where the evidence for diachronic disruption is extensive, and ignoring it impoverishes our reading of the text.

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instance, regarding the third speech cycle he asserts that, “even incoherence may be part of the poet’s point. The conversation has deteriorated.”282 But this sense of a broken down dialogue does not account for the full range of structural, stylistic and theological disruptions seen in these chapters. Bildad’s speech in ch. 25 lacks any introduction at all, while Job is reintroduced in 27:1 and 29:1, each with formulas unprecedented earlier in the book. In 26:2–4 Job seems to address a single friend, whereas virtually everywhere else he addresses them in the plural (as also in 27:5), and in 26:5–14 he goes on to praise God’s power with none of the critical edge seen in earlier speeches. An even starker reversal of Job’s earlier position is seen in 27:13– 23, where Job suddenly affirms the very dichotomy between the wicked and the righteous that he everywhere else denies. And even Bildad’s brief speech gives a very different impression than those attributed to the friends earlier (25:2–6). The inconsistencies in the third speech cycle occur on several different levels, strongly implying some sort of significant disruption.283 Whether we can reconstruct the precise history of the development of these chapters is certainly debatable, but that the “third speech cycle” as we have it represents the original poet’s intent is highly doubtful.284 More broadly, I would argue that dismissing the possibility of diachronic development carries its own dangers. In particular, flattening everything into a single layer risks too quickly harmonizing the book’s tensions and overlooking the shifts that are actually present in the text we have. We have seen a number of examples of this already, as commentators attempt to coordinate the various parts of Eliphaz’s speech by ignoring or downplaying certain aspects of the text, whether in 4:7–11, 4:17–21 or 5:1. To my mind, the two dangers are parallel. Whether we focus only on the “original” form of the book and treat everything added or changed as relatively unimportant, or focus only on the “final” form of the book, ignoring whatever lies behind it, either way we prioritize a single point in its history to the exclusion of all others. Both approaches impoverish our understanding of the text in all its complexity.

282 SEOW, Job, 29, following SEITZ, Full-Structure, 13, and NEWSOM, Contest, 164–68. To support this, he suggests that after the friends speak past each other in the second speech cycle it makes sense for the third speech cycle to break down yet further, with Bildad’s speech cut off, Zophar’s missing, and Job’s taking up the friends’ arguments for them (29–30). 283 This evidence and the solutions that have been proposed to explain it will be addressed in detail in Chapter Three below. 284 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 65–66, is right to insist that, apart from a few relatively clear cases where a relative chronology can be established, it is unlikely that a full history of the book’s development can be reconstructed with confidence, and this thesis will not attempt to provide one.

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Yet these approaches are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to combine the insights of a redactional reconstruction which takes seriously the tensions within the text, and a literary approach both to the individual parts and the whole they have formed. Diachronic reconstruction is not an end in itself – its goal must always be to provide a deeper understanding of the text we actually have – but there are aspects of the text that cannot be fully and properly understood if we focus only on the “final form” of the book. In brief, how we came to have the text that we do must always remain secondary to an interpretation of the text itself, but it is not irrelevant to it. In cases where the inconsistencies are not just minor and stylistic, but extend across the full range of grammatical, lexical, syntactical, structural, thematic and theological aspects of the text, the likelihood of a significant disruption cannot be dismissed, even in the absence of external manuscript or versional evidence. Ignoring such evidence is not being faithful to the “final form” of the text; it obscures the rich complexity of the text that we actually have.285 In the case of the vision itself, if large portions of the book truly were written under the assumption that it appeared at the end of Job’s speech, rather than in the middle of Eliphaz’s, then our interpretation of a broad range of texts will be significantly distorted if we ignore that possibility. Not only will we be forced to harmonize or leave unexplained key portions of Eliphaz’s argument in chs. 4–5, but we will miss a great deal in Job’s subsequent use of the vision, and misrepresent the friends’ own responses to it. At the same time, however, the text as we have it does not directly attribute the vision to Job, but to Eliphaz, and unless that was truly just an accident, a proper understanding of the book must also attempt to account for why it now appears where it does, and what impact this has on our reading of its canonical form.286 In both cases, it is precisely the attempt to take seriously the import of particular texts on their own terms – without undue harmonization – which calls for a broader analysis of the synchronic and diachronic shaping of the whole. In the end, even diachronic analysis should serve to explain the text we have, not to explain it away.

285 On the other hand, my approach to emendation remains relatively conservative. At the level of individual verses, I will attempt to maintain the MT unless it is clearly corrupt or the versions offer a demonstrably superior text. In such cases, repointing is preferable to rewriting the consonantal text, and multiple emendations in a short space should be avoided at all costs, as one can make the text say virtually anything through such an approach. 286 Thus, when I ask whether the “original” form of the book reported the vision somewhere other than where it is now, I am not assuming that the “original” form is inherently more authentic, I am simply attempting to understand why the text has the form that it does, and why other texts within the book respond to the vision in the ways that they do. The goal is to understand the text itself, not to reach behind it to something else.

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II. “Intertextuality” and the Book of Job At the center of this study stands not a redactional question, but a literary one: What role does the vision actually play in the dialogues as a whole? That is, how is it taken up and adapted by later speakers, and for what purposes? To ask such questions inevitably raises the issue of “intertextuality,” which has become a touchstone for virtually all discussion of the relation between texts. As is often observed, the term “intertextuality” was originally coined to refer to an essentially synchronic comparison of texts, in explicit contrast to earlier approaches which emphasized the direct influence of earlier texts on later ones.287 Despite the term’s origins, however, it has often been used as an umbrella term to describe a wide range of approaches to texts, both synchronic and diachronic.288 Due in part to this continuing disagreement regarding definition, I will generally avoid the term, but I do not believe there is anything inherently problematic about stretching “intertextuality” to include diachronic approaches as well as synchronic. As Kynes notes, the terms “intertextual” and “intertextuality” fill a need in summarizing all of the different ways texts can relate, and need not be restricted to a particular ideological approach.289 287 SOMMER, Prophet, 6–20, insists that these must be distinguished, and favors the more diachronically-focused “influence” and “allusion” to the more synchronic “intertextuality.” BARTON, Déjà Lu, 1–16, esp. 7–16, also cautions that biblical scholars have too often embraced “intertextuality” as a method for interpreting texts, without paying sufficient attention to its original intent as a theory of culture more generally. That is, “intertextuality” was not developed to describe the relation between particular texts, but rather to show how all texts are part of an infinite web of textual linkages. He refers to the methodologically-focused approach as “soft intertextuality,” and the philosophically-focused theory as “hard intertextuality” (9), and chides biblical scholars for ignoring the latter, more radical aspect of the concept. Though there are fascinating issues raised by a focus on such “hard” forms of intertextuality, the present study is unabashedly focused on the “soft” approach. My concern is first and foremost to interpret Job itself. HARDING, Spirit, 138– 140, explicitly favors the synchronic, reader-focused form of intertextuality in his reading of the vision. 288 KYNES, My Psalm, 20, cf. 17–27, defends such a broadening of the concept; similarly, PYEON, Intertextuality, 49–56. This is also reflected in the recent collection of essays edited by DELL AND KYNES, Reading Job, despite the cautions by BARTON, Déjà Lu, 1–16. Cf. also CARR, Many Uses, 505–35. 289 KYNES, My Psalm, 20. Indeed, all of the alternatives threaten to unduly limit our perspective to one particular type or form of textual link: “Influence” suggests something one-directional; “exegesis” emphasizes interpretation, which is not always the point, “allusion” is most properly a term for unmarked reuse of an earlier text, and creates complications when applied more broadly. “Intertextuality” can encompass all of these and more. Kynes further notes the irony of those who champion a synchronic reader-oriented approach to texts insisting that the meaning of the term “intertextuality” should be restricted to the original intent of the one who coined it (22).

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What is important to the present study is not the term, but rather the recognition that texts can relate to one another in a wide range of ways, both intentionally and unintentionally. My question is not simply whether parallels can be drawn, for instance between 4:13–14 and 7:13–14, but why the latter seems to draw on the former. What is gained from the discussion of intertextuality is the recognition that later texts are not simply influenced by earlier ones, but also respond to and reinterpret the texts that they invoke.290 Given its overall structure as a set of dialogues, the book of Job offers distinctive challenges and opportunities for such analysis. On the one side, it is clear that the characters within the book often quote, allude to or respond to each other’s statements.291 On the other side, it has often been suggested that Job quotes or alludes to other biblical books and traditions, particularly Deuteronomy, Psalms, Proverbs, Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah.292 Both internal and external parallels will be considered at various points in this study, but our primary focus will be on the former, “intratextuality” of the vision’s use within the book. The same basic methodology applies to both, but the case is somewhat easier to handle when discussing internal parallels compared to external ones.293 For instance, while the questions of relative date and direction of dependence cannot be set aside, particularly if Job did develop diachronically, there is still a legitimate presumption that later speeches more likely refer to earlier ones than vice versa.294 Thus the burden of proof need not be as high to establish an intratextual link as an intertextual one. Methodologically, several points should be highlighted. First, distinctions should be made between citations, quotations, allusions and echoes.295 Cita290

KYNES, My Psalm, 24; he defends the continuing importance of the diachronic aspects of intertextuality at length (17–27), noting that it can offer a needed check on the unrestrained chaos of a purely synchronic approach, in which any text can be linked to any other (25–27). In this context, SANDMEL, Paralellomania, 1–13, remains relevant. 291 On Job’s intratextual links, cf. esp. GORDIS, Book of God, 169–189, esp. 185–89; FISHBANE, Job, 93–98; PYEON, Intertextuality; LYONS, Talk, 169–177. The term was suggested by CARR, Intratextuality, 97–112, to describe intertextual links within a biblical work. Though he is looking primarily at distinct layers in the book (of which we will a bit as well), the same term can also be applied to distinct speakers within a book like Job. 292 Cf. e.g. FISHBANE, Job, 86–98; PYEON, Intertextuality; SCHMID, Schriftdiskussion, 241–261; BRINKS REA, Similarities; KYNES, My Psalm; and the essays in DELL AND KYNES, Reading Job. 293 LYONS, Talk, 171–72; KYNES, My Psalm, 46–49. 294 That is not to say there are no exceptions. The priority of the prologue is often questioned, while chs. 28, and 32–37 are often thought to draw on the divine speeches, rather than the other way around. Nonetheless, the bulk of the proposed expansions to the book have been found in its second half, suggesting that most often the book developed primarily by adding and expanding subsequent speeches rather than preempting them. 295 KYNES, My Psalm, 30–33. By contrast, SOMMER, Prophet, 21–22, prefers to distinguish “explicit citation” from “implicit reference” (the latter category includes both what I

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tions will refer to cases where the text makes explicit in some way that it is referring to an earlier text or statement, generally by employing some sort of a citation formula (e.g. “you say” in 11:4). Quotations, as I use the term, are more or less direct repetitions of earlier text, with or without a formal citation formula (e.g. 9:2). Allusions are less direct, drawing key terms, structures or themes from an earlier text, but in a looser way (e.g. 20:2–8). Echoes are unintentional allusions, and are often not clearly distinguishable from dependence on a common tradition or idiom.296 It should not be assumed that “citations” are somehow more certain than quotations or allusions. Sometimes the opposite can be true.297 In none of these cases is it necessary that the source text be repeated verbatim, and in fact most citations, quotations and allusions in Job are periphrastic, repeating “just enough of the passage to indicate the allusion.”298 That being the case, how can it be established that a quotation or allusion is intended at all? There are several intersecting lines of evidence that can support such a conclusion: First are the lexical, syntactical and structural parallels themselves – the rarer the terms and constructions, and the more closely they are parallel, the more likely it is that one text is drawing directly on the other.299 Even then, the possibility of dependence on a common source cannot be excluded without other evidence: Thematic similarity is important, in that the likelihood of an allusion generally depends on the terms being used in related ways in both texts, though it is entirely possible for an allusion to deliberately shift the meaning of the terms being used.300 By the same token, am calling quotation and allusion), and uses “allusion” more narrowly to refer to textual links where the alluding text uses its source for its own purposes, rather than to say something particular about the source itself (29–31). It seems to me preferable to maintain the more common definition of allusion as an implicit reference. KYNES, My Psalm, 30–31, distinguishes quotation from allusion from echo (with a nice diagram). My goal here is not to offer a new synthesis or methodology, but simply to clarify how I am using these terms, and to highlight the most important issues regarding the analysis of such textual links. 296 It should be clear that these represent a spectrum rather than a set of clearly distinguishable categories, but the terms serve to indicate that not all intertextual links are equally clearly marked. 297 For instance, in 33:8–11 Elihu explicitly cites Job, but the text that he attributes to him is a periphrastic summary of Job’s views, not an exact reproduction of statements Job has actually made. Meanwhile, 33:15 is not introduced with any kind of a citation formula, but reproduces 4:13 nearly verbatim. 298 KYNES, My Psalm, 47. 299 PYEON, Intertextuality, 63–64; KYNES, My Psalm, 37; both follow R. B. HAYS, Echoes, 1–33. Rarity is necessary, not because writers cannot quote common expressions, but because their very commonality raises the possibility that the writer is merely using formulaic language rather than referring to a specific text (KYNES, My Psalm, 37–42). 300 LEVINSON, Legal Innovation, 16, notes that part of Deuteronomy’s strategy for reinterpreting and revising the Covenant Code was to “appropriate key lemmas from the earlier text,” giving them new meanings while masking the extent of the innovations introduced.

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when the parallel text disrupts its context in one of the two passages – thematically or grammatically – that can be a clue to the direction of dependence.301 There are also formal characteristics that can indicate a quotation, the most notable being an explicit citation formula, but also including more general references to speech, the direct reversal of word order (known as Seidel’s law), or contextual clues such as an explicit rebuttal.302 Indications of parody or irony can also indicate a quotation or allusion.303 Finally, if there are other plausible links to the same text in the new context, the case for each individual allusion is strengthened.304 On their own, none of these are necessarily conclusive, but when several coalesce in a single text, the case for a deliberate link is strong. It is not enough to establish that a quotation or allusion is probable, however; the goal is to understand how and why the text is invoked. Here it must be asked not only how the texts are similar, but also now they differ: Are the differences deliberate, and if so what purpose do they serve – merely to fit the quotation to its new context, or to interpret, rebut, parody, or emphasize it in some way? What is the new text’s attitude toward its source, and how much of the original context is actually called to mind – just the quoted text, or also something of its original background?305 Sommer emphasizes that not all uses of an earlier text serve the same purposes, so he distinguishes inner-biblical exegesis from influence, revision, polemic, allusion and echo.306 Even this does not exhaust the range of potential motivations. For instance, parody is another prominent mode of textual link in Job especially.307 The key is that quotations and allusions do not simply draw from their sources, they also reflect back on them in various ways, for various reasons. An allusion can 301

KYNES, My Psalm, 52–54. On Seidel’s law, or the observation that quotations in biblical literature often reverse the order of the material quoted, cf. LEVINSON, Legal Innovation, 18–19; TALMON, Textual Study, 362–63; BEENTJES, Inverted Quotations, 506–523. 303 HOLBERT, Skies, 171–79. 304 KYNES, My Psalm, 55. 305 SOMMER, Prophet, 22–23; KYNES, My Psalm, 54–55. 306 SOMMER, Prophet, 23–31. For him, inner-biblical exegesis refers to the attempt to interpret earlier texts (23–25, 29–30). Influence means the broad-scale impact of one text on another (e.g. Deut on DtrH; 25). Revision is when an old text is restated with modifications meant to replace the original (25–28; cf. LEVINSON, Legal Innovation, esp. 13–17). Polemic actively rejects the source text, rather than revising and replacing it (SOMMER, Prophet, 28–29). Allusion draws from the source for its own purposes, rather than to say something about the source itself (29–30). Echo draws language or imagery from an earlier text without specifically interpreting it (30–31). LYONS, Talk, 172–76, adds additional functions which intratextual links can take, including creating literary cohesion, indicating plot development, structuring arguments, and shaping characterization. 307 Cf. DELL, Sceptical Literature, esp. 110–157; ZUCKERMAN, Silent, esp. 93–135; HOLBERT, Skies, 171–79; most recently GREENSTEIN, Parody, 66–78. 302

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serve to embrace, critique, reinterpret, extend, mock, invert, or reapply its source, so the important question is not simply whether a text is invoked, but how and why. Particularly in the case of the vision, we will see that it both alludes to earlier texts and traditions, and is in turn quoted and alluded to for a variety of different and often conflicting reasons. Recognizing the diversity of these links will go a long way to explaining the complex role that the vision plays in the book as we have it.

D. Chapter Summary D. Chapter Summary

The central question that drives this thesis is simple: What role does the vision in 4:12–21 play in the book of Job as a whole? Since the answer is far from simple, however, this leads to several subordinate questions: What does the vision itself mean? What is its origin, and why is it located where it is? And how is it invoked and responded to in the rest of the book? The following chapters will take up each of these questions in various ways. Chapter One will focus on the form and content of the vision itself. It will be argued that the vision is not portrayed as a straightforward prophetic revelation, but is deeply subversive, both in its visionary form (4:12–16), and in its message (4:17–21). Not only is the source of the vision unidentified, but the language used to describe it recalls images of divine judgment and deception at least as strongly as it does prophetic revelation. Similarly, though on the surface its message might be read as a simple affirmation that God is greater than all others, closer examination reveals a profoundly pessimistic view of human fate, and may even imply that God is uninterested in justice, mistrusting his own servants and allowing mortals to die without wisdom. Chapter Two will focus on the role of the vision in the first two speech cycles, arguing that both its own form and content strongly tie it to Job’s perspective, not Eliphaz’s. Not only does the vision itself very closely match Job’s style rather than Eliphaz’s, but Job alone uses such language to describe himself. The friends attribute the vision’s language – even from the visionary’s own self-description – exclusively to Job and the wicked, never themselves. This general trend is confirmed by the specific citations and allusions to the vision across the first two speech cycles. The vision is quoted as the “words” of Job by Eliphaz and probably Bildad (15:12–16; cf. 8:2–3), and alluded to in the same way by all of the friends, while they repeatedly reject both the content of the vision itself, and Job’s role in passing it along. Meanwhile, Job complains that God sends him terrifying visions (7:14), denies that he has “hidden the words of the Holy One” (6:10), and regularly builds on the message of the vision to complain of human frailty and God’s indiscriminate judgment.

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Nevertheless, the current form of the book does not attribute the vision to Job, but to Eliphaz. In Chapter Three we will reconsider how the vision could have come to appear in Job 4 through an examination both of the structure and contents of chs. 3–5 in themselves, and in light of the similarly anomalous treatment of the vision in the third speech cycle. It will be argued that a comparison with chs. 25–27 and 32–35 implies that the vision was attributed to Job until a late stage in the book’s composition (even Elihu assumes this), and that its present attribution probably resulted from the same secondary activity that disrupted the third speech cycle. Together, these moves served to distance Job from the vision and the subversive conclusions he draws from it, attributing it to the friends instead. Ultimately, however, the goal of this study is not just to explain how the text came to have the form that it does, but also and primarily to examine the role the vision plays in the book as a whole, both synchronically and diachronically. Thus Chapter Four will focus on how Job and his friends respectively respond to the vision in the contexts of their own speeches. First, we will reconsider the meaning of the vision and Job’s use of it. Though Job regularly builds on its imagery and conclusions, he is also deeply troubled not only by its message, but also by his own role in receiving and passing it along. Meanwhile, the friends’ own allusions to the vision are also more diverse than is often recognized, and cannot be mapped to any simple dichotomy between “revelation” and “tradition,” even in the original form of the dialogue. In its final form, however, all contrasts between Job and his friends are thrown into confusion by the attribution of the vision to Eliphaz, and of 26:2–14 and 27:13–23 to Job. In Chapter Five, therefore, we will broaden our scope to consider the meaning of the vision in the book as a whole, and in light of its final framing and earliest reception history. On that basis, it will be argued that these reattributions are by no means accidental, but mark an important transition from the accusing Job of the dialogues to the steadfast Job of the tradition.

Chapter 1

An Uncanny Vision Subversive Imagery in 4:12–21 Chapter 1: An Uncanny Vision Introduction

Revelatory dreams and visions appear in many forms and contexts in the Hebrew Bible, and are attributed to a surprisingly diverse cast of characters – not only prophets and seers, but also patriarchs, kings, and wise men, both Israelite and foreign.1 These range from symbolic visions,2 to glimpses of the heavenly court,3 to simple references to a “vision” preceding apparently oral revelations.4 In at least some circles, however, such modes of revelation came to be challenged, though no clear typology emerges. Jeremiah is the most outspoken critic, condemning the “lying dreams” of the prophets (Jer 23:32), who “speak visions from their own hearts” (23:16; cf. 14:14). He most often describes his own prophetic activity in terms of the “word of YHWH,” and never refers to his own “visions.”5 Yet even Jeremiah reports his own visionary experiences using other language.6 Whether this reflects the complex development of the book or an intended distinction between true and false visions, both appear side by side in the text as we have it. In line with this, late texts of the Hebrew Bible continue to anticipate both the end of visionary experience (Zech 13:2–3), and its widespread expansion (Joel 3:1[2:28]). The fullest study of this material to date is the 2002 monograph by Behrens, who takes a form-critical approach, reconstructing what he calls the

1 On dreams and visions in the Hebrew Bible, cf. BEHRENS, Visionsschilderungen; NIDITCH, Vision; LANCKAU, Herr der Träume; LONG, Visions, 353–65; HORST, Visionsschilderungen, 438–454; EHRLICH, Dreams. For the wider ancient Near East, cf. OPPENHEIM, Interpretation; BUTLER, Dreams; ZGOLL, Traum. 2 NIDITCH, Vision, 1, lists twelve symbolic visions in the Hebrew Bible: Amos 7:7–9; 8:1–3; Jer 1:11–12; 1:13–19; 24:1–10; Zech 1:7–17; 2:1–4; 4:1–6a; 4:10b–14; 5:1–4; 6:1– 8; Dan 7; 8. On this type of vision, cf. also HORST, Visionsschilderungen, 448–450; LONG, Visions, 356–59; cf. also EHRLICH, Traum, 58–124, on symbolic dreams: Gen 37:5–8; 37:9–10; 40; 41; Judg 7:13–14; Dan 2; 3:31–4:34[4:1–37]. 3 E.g. Amos 9:1–4; Isa 6; 1 Kgs 22:19–22; Zech 3:1–7; cf. Job 1:6–12; 2:1–7. On these cf. BEHRENS, Visionsschilderungen, 97–104, 138–182, esp. 156–163; KINGSBURY, Prophets, 279–286; LONG, Visions, 359–363; HORST, Visionsschilderungen, 443–45. 4 E.g. 2 Sam 7:17; Isa 1:1; Ob 1:1; Nah 1:1. 5 E.g. Jer 1:2; 14:1; 23:17; and often elsewhere. 6 E.g. Jer 1:11–12, 13–19; 4:23–26; 24:1–10; 38:21–23.

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“prophetic vision report” genre.7 As he recognizes, a large number of visions share a distinctive two-part structure, beginning with a visual portion, typically introduced with ‫ הנה‬+ ‫ראה‬, followed by a divine word or dialogue, introduced with ‫ אמר‬or occasionally ‫שׁמע‬, and usually beginning with a question or imperative.8 This form persists across many types of visions that otherwise differ dramatically in their contents and contexts, and appears in various biblical books. A simple example is Amos 8:1–2, which briefly reports what Amos saw, followed by YHWH’s question: This is what the Lord YHWH showed me [‫]הראני‬, and behold [‫ ]והנה‬a harvest basket. 2 Then he said [‫]ויאמר‬, “What do you see, Amos?” And I said, “A harvest basket.” Then YHWH said to me, “The end has come to my people Israel, I will no longer spare them.” 1

In this case, the vision is symbolic,9 but many other visions serve instead as the setting for what follows.10 An example of the latter appears in Amos 9:1: I saw [‫ ]ראיתי‬YHWH standing at the altar, and he said [‫]ויאמר‬, “Strike the capitals so the thresholds shake, and bring it down on all their heads, then I will put them to the sword. Those who flee shall not flee; and those who escape shall not escape. 7 BEHRENS, Visionsschilderungen, 13, lists the following as prophetic vision reports: Amos 7:1–3; 7:4–6; 7:7–8; 8:1–2; 9:1–4; Jer 24:1–10; Isa 6:1–11; 2 Kgs 22:17; 22:19–22; Ezek 1:1–2:8; 2:9–39; 8:2–6; 8:7–13; 8:14–15; 8:16–18; 9:1–10; 37:1–14; cf. 43:1–9 (other visions in Ezekiel take other forms; e.g. chs. 40–44); Zech 1:7–15; 2:1–4; 2:5–9; 4:1–6a; 4:10b-14; 5:1–4; 5:5–11; 6:1–8 (3:1–10 differs); Dan 8:3–14; 10:5–14; 12:5–7. Occasionally the first half is missing, e.g. Jer 1:11–12; 1:13–14. Behrens does not identify Job 4:12–21 as a prophetic vision report, nor does he discuss it. 8 According to BEHRENS, Visionsschilderungen, 32–60, 372–78, ‫ ראה‬is typically Qal 1st Sg. or Hiph 3rd Sg., with a 1st person suffix, almost always followed by ‫ הנה‬with a nominal clause. The divine word or dialogue typically begins with a ‫ו‬-consecutive form of ‫אמר‬ (occasionally replaced or accompanied by ‫)שׁמע‬, usually followed by a question or imperative, but always ending with a divine word. A similar but less clearly defined form is reconstructed by LONG, Visions, 353–65; cf. HORST, Visionsschilderungen, 438–454, esp. 452–54. 9 Cf. NIDITCH, Vision, 34–41; the vision is essentially an exalted word play on ‫קיץ‬ (“harvest”) and ‫“( הקץ‬the end” or “cut off point”; NIDITCH, Vision, 35). 10 LONG, Visions, 359, refers to these as “Dramatic Word-Vision[s],” which depict “a heavenly scene, or a dramatic action, a situation altogether supramundane taken as a portent presaging a future event in the mundane realm.” He lists the following examples: 1 Kgs 22:17; 22:19–22; Amos 7:1–6; 9:1–4; Ezek 9:1–10; 10:2, 4, 7, 18–19; Isa 6:1–11; Jer 38:21–23; Zech 1:8–15; 2:5–9; 3:1–7; 6:1–8. As implied by the inclusion of Zech 1 and 6 in both Long’s list of “word-visions” and Niditch’s list of symbolic visions, these categorizations can overlap, especially in late texts such as in Zech.

Introduction

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Similar examples are more fully described in Isa 6:1–11 and 1 Kgs 22:19–22, in which visions of the divine throne room set the stage for accounts of what the prophet heard there. Isaiah 6 is the most famous example, beginning “I saw [‫ ]ראה‬the Lord sitting on a throne” (6:1). This is followed by an extended description of the happenings in the throne room, leading to a commissioning: “Then I heard [‫ ]שׁמע‬the voice of the Lord saying [‫]אמר‬, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’” (6:8). Micaiah’s vision in 1 Kgs 22 is probably dependent on Isaiah, also beginning: “Therefore hear [‫ ]שׁמע‬the word of YHWH: I saw [‫ ]ראה‬YHWH sitting on his throne” (22:19), then continuing “And YHWH said [‫]אמר‬, ‘Who will deceive Ahab, so that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’” (22:20).11 In such visions, the divine word is part of the visionary experience rather than being an explanation of it, even though the same overall structure is employed. Not all visionary experiences are reported according to this “vision report” genre, however. Outside the prophetic books, a number of visions are described without the characteristic verbal markers that Behrens observes.12 Most of these still have a broadly similar structure, indicating first a visionary experience (often not described) followed by the divine word, but not all of them do. The most notable exception is Abram’s experience of a theophany in Gen 15, which freely mixes the divine word with disparate descriptions of the visual experience and its physiological effects. First “the word of YHWH came to Abram in a vision [‫( ”]מחזה‬15:1; cf. 15:4), also followed by a question (15:2–3; cf. 15:8), but the theophany itself comes later (15:12–21). It is marked by the oncoming of night, a “deep sleep” that fell upon Abram, and a “great, dark terror” (15:12). It remains disputed whether this unusual mixture reflects a complex diachronic development and of what type, but the blending together of diverse motifs is clear.13 The vision in Job 4:12–21 presents a similarly unique combination of forms, though there is no reason to doubt its essential unity.14 The passage as a whole is nicely balanced, with two halves of five verses each, four of which Cf. Isa 6:1b (‫ )ואראה את־אדני ישׁב על־כסא‬and 1 Kgs 22:19b ( ‫ראיתי את־יהוה ישׁב‬ ‫)על־כסאו‬. BEHRENS, Visionsschilderungen, 156–163, 182, argues in further detail that 1 11

Kgs 22 is dependent on Isa 6. 12 Other texts that describe revelatory visions without following the typical form include, e.g., Gen 15; 17; 28:10–19; Num 22:7–14; 22:18–21; 23:3–5; 23:15–16; 1 Sam 3:2– 18; 1 Kgs 3:4–15; Isa 21:1–10; Jer 4:23–26; 38:21–23. 13 Cf. e.g. the recent studies by SCHMIDT, Genesis XV, 251–267, and FIDLER, Genesis XV, 162–180, who diverge on a great deal, but seem to agree that 15:1–6 fits uncomfortably with 15:7–21, and that 15:1a and 15:12 are later and stem from the same layer. NOEGEL, A Crux and a Taunt, 128–135, attempts to defend the unity of the passage. 14 Doubts have sometimes been raised about the tri-cola in 4:16 and 4:19, while 4:20–21 are frequently rearranged or split up, but few have challenged the originality of the overall shape of the passage. TORCZYNER, Hiob, 12, went furthest, rearranging much of the text, but even he later stepped back from this (TUR-SINAI, Job, 85–88).

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are bi-cola. Its overall structure most closely resembles Behrens’ “prophetic vision report,” beginning with a first-person account of the experience, then reporting the content of the (divine) word beginning with a question (4:17). But it lacks the usual verbal markers of the genre, ‫ראה‬, ‫ הנה‬and ‫אמר‬. The description of a theophanic experience as the setting for the divine word parallels Isa 6 and 1 Kgs 22, but the experience itself differs in fundamental ways. It is not set in the divine throne room, does not explicitly refer to God, and is marked by a terror and confusion not evident in those texts. On the latter point, Job 4 is more closely paralleled by Gen 15 and Isa 21, which stress the dread that the vision instilled in the recipient, but do not adhere to the usual formal structure.15 It is not until Daniel that the “prophetic vision report” genre is explicitly linked to fear.16 This emphasis on dread and confusion, however, points to a deeper discontinuity between the vision in Job 4 and others in the Hebrew Bible. Its anonymous depiction not only diverges from other visionary accounts, but also combines elements from other prophetic traditions, some of which may not imply revelation at all.17 As we will see, some of its imagery can be linked to depictions of the judgment and condemnation of “false” prophets, including several details which may allude to traditions of a “spirit of falsehood,” which God sends to deceive and condemn the guilty (e.g. 1 Kgs 22:19–22). These subversive features of the vision have often been seen as evidence that this is not a “genuine” revelation from YHWH,18 but an allusion to the “spirit of falsehood” would rather imply that the vision has come from YHWH, but that its purpose is to deceive and condemn the recipient. Too often the full range of the vision’s distinctiveness has been missed as scholars seek to reconcile it to the speech in which it appears. Even those who doubt the attribution to Eliphaz have read it primarily in light of its later use within the book, whether that be the paraphrases in chs. 15 and 25, or Job’s own interpretation in ch. 9. Those links will be examined in later chap15 Genesis 15 is linked to Job 4:12–16 by the expression ‫ אל‬+ ‫“( דבר‬a/the word to”) in Gen 15:1 and Job 4:12, forms of ‫ חזינות( חזה‬in Job 4:13; ‫ מחזה‬in Gen 15:1, both meaning “visions”), the term ‫“( תרדמה‬deep sleep”; Gen 15:12; Job 4:13), and the emphasis on fear (Gen 15:12; Job 4:14). SCHMIDT, Genesis XV, 255, links Gen 15:1–6, 12–16 to Job 4. Genesis 15 differs from Job in that its vision is reported in the 3rd person and does not follow the two-part structure that Job shares with many other visions. A similarly fearful reaction to a vision is described in the 1st person in Isa 21:3–4, but without clear lexical links to Job 4. 16 Cf. Dan 8:27; 10:12, 19. 17 On the ambiguity of the vision, see esp. HARDING, Spirit, 137–166; FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 320–374, esp. 346–355; HABEL, Job, 121–22, 127–28; cf. also HOFFMAN, Equivocal Words, 114–19; COTTER, Job 4–5, 109–115; SCHMID, Schriftdiskussion, 252–58; TSOI, Vision, 155–182. CAESAR, New Thesis, 439–440, also concludes that 4:12– 21 does not directly correspond to any biblical model for a vision or dream. 18 So FYALL, Eyes, 147; COTTER, Job 4–5, 182–83; TSOI, Vision, 155–182.

A. Images of Revelation and Judgment in 4:12–16

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ters, but first we need to establish clearly what 4:12–21 itself actually says and implies. In this chapter, therefore, we will first attempt to read the vision on its own, setting aside for the moment the question of its relation to its immediate and wider context. We will begin with the visionary account in 4:12–16, then turn to the message in 4:17–21, in each case examining the connotations of its language within the wider Hebrew Bible. Lexical parallels elsewhere in Job will be considered, in the first instance, not in an attempt at harmonization, but simply to demonstrate the range of potential meanings of this highly ambiguous and allusive text. In the next chapter, we will return to these lexical parallels to demonstrate that there is in fact a very strong linkage between the language and style of the vision and Job’s manner of speaking, but first we need to establish what the vision itself actually affirms.

A. Images of Revelation and Judgment in 4:12–16 A. Images of Revelation and Judgment in 4:12–16 But to me a word is stolen, and my ear receives a whisper of it. 13 In troubling thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on mortals. 14 Dread has befallen me, and trembling, and made all my bones shake. 15 Then a spirit passes before my face, and the hair of my flesh bristles. 16 It stands still, but I cannot recognize its appearance. A form is in front of my eyes – silence, then I hear a voice: 12

Like its overall form, the terms and imagery in 4:12–16 can be linked to a range of divergent theophanic experiences across the Hebrew Bible. Though the “word” (‫ ;דבר‬4:12a), “visions” (‫ ;חזינות‬4:13a), “spirit” (‫ ;רוח‬4:15a), “voice” (‫ ;קול‬4:16b) and perhaps “deep sleep” (‫ ;תרדמה‬4:13b) can all be linked to revelatory traditions, even these terms are ambiguous, while the “stolen” word (‫ ;גנב‬4:12a), “whisper” (‫ ;שׁמץ‬4:12b), “troubling thoughts” (‫ ;שׂעפים‬4:13a), and “dread” (‫ ;פחד‬4:14a, b) cast a more disturbing light on the experience.19 Habel concludes that, “The poet’s bizarre collage of distinct allusions borders on parody of traditional modes of revelation.”20 Pope similarly affirms that this “uncanny” description “toys in poetic fancy with the

19 Such an argument can be taken too far if it fails to recognize that lexical meaning is contextually dependent, (cf. BARR, Semantics, esp. 107–160), but language also acquires connotations through consistent use, so the juxtaposition of terms not normally used together can introduce conflicting associations into a text. 20 HABEL, Job, 121, cf. 121–22, 127–28.

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direct effect of contact with the divine.”21 But is this mere parody? Gordis rightly objects that the speaker “is not ‘toying’ with the idea of Divine revelation; he is in deadly earnest.”22 The points are not mutually exclusive. Habel and Pope are correct that the text blends terms with a variety of conflicting associations, but Gordis is also right that the tone is not ironic. What they each overlook is that not all of the theophanic traditions invoked are revelatory; some reflect also or instead the deception and condemnation of the recipient.23 To see this, we will first examine the conflicting connotations of the vision’s language, then focus on what this could imply about its purpose. I. Juxtaposed Imagery of Revelation and Judgment The vision’s tensions are evident from the first verse: “But to me [‫ ]ואלי‬a word is stolen [‫ ;גנב‬Pu], and my ear receives a whisper [‫ ]שׁמץ‬of it.” Though ‫ דבר‬often carries a mundane sense, a word coming “to” (‫ )אל‬someone is most often a means of describing prophecy, appearing for instance in the superscriptions to many of the prophetic books.24 The expression is especially common in Jeremiah, a book with many close links to Job.25 The prominent position of ‫ אלי‬at the beginning of 4:12 highlights this link, and emphasizes the personal nature of the experience. But in all other cases the “word to me” simply “is” or “happened” (‫)היה‬, and explicitly comes from YHWH. In Job 4:12 it “is stolen” (‫)גנב‬, and its source is left unspecified. The root ‫ גנב‬has strongly negative connotations in nearly all other occurrences, including in Job.26 Most often it refers to theft, which is generally condemned, as for instance in the Ten Commandments.27 It can also indicate

21

POPE, Job, 36. GORDIS, Job, 519. 23 HARDING, Spirit, 137–166; HAMORI, Spirit, 24–25. 24 Cf. Jer 1:2; Ezek 1:3; Hos 1:1; Joel 1:1; Jon 1:1; Mic 1:1; Zeph 1:1; Hag 1:1; Zech 1:1; Mal 1:1; cf. also e.g. Gen 15:1, 4; 2 Sam 7:4; Isa 16:13; 38:4; Dan 9:23; 10:1. 25 ‫ דבר־יהוה‬appears 60 times in Jeremiah, including 11 times specifically followed by ‫( אלי‬with the 1st Sg. Suffix; Jer 1:4, 11, 13; 2:1; 13:3, 8; 16:1; 18:5; 24:4; 25:3; 32:6, 26). The expression is also very common in Ezekiel. Among recent studies on Job’s relation to and probable dependence on Jeremiah, cf. esp. DELL, Cursed, 106–117; GREENSTEIN, Inspiration, 98–110; PYEON, Intertextuality, esp. 83–88. 26 The root appears 57 times in the Hebrew Bible (including 17 times as a noun meaning “thief” or “kidnapper”; e.g. Deut 24:7; Ps 50:18; Prov 29:24). The only other occurrences in the Pual are in Gen 40:15 (of Joseph being kidnapped) and Exod 22:6[7] (of stolen goods). It appears four times more in Job, twice as a noun meaning “thief” (24:14; 30:5), which is in one case paralleled by “murderer” (‫ ;רוצח‬24:14; cf. Jer 7:9; Hos 4:2), and twice to describe the destruction of the wicked, who are “stolen away” by a whirlwind (affirmed in 27:20; denied in 21:18; cf. NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 33). 27 E.g. Exod 20:15; 21:16; 22:1, 6, 11[2, 7, 12]; Lev 19:11; Deut 5:19; Jer 7:9; Hos 4:2. 22

A. Images of Revelation and Judgment in 4:12–16

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deception, and is often paralleled with lying in condemnations.28 Only very rarely can the verb be used of secrecy, and even then the sense of something shameful or deceptive is still generally present.29 For instance, Harding claims that the term is used of secrecy in 2 Sam 19:4[3],30 but even there it is directly linked to shame: “The people stole [‫ ;גנב‬Hitp] into the city that day as people steal in [‫ ;גנב‬Hitp] who are ashamed [‫ ]כלם‬when they flee in battle.” Likewise, the only place ‫ גנב‬describes prophecy is in Jeremiah’s depiction of the false prophets, who “prophesy lying dreams” (‫ ;חלמות שׁקר‬23:32; cf. 23:16) and “steal [‫ ;גנב‬Pi] my [=YHWH’s] words [‫ ]דברים‬from one another” (23:30).31 Here as well, ‫ גנב‬is associated with the divine word, but with clearly negative connotations. It is possible that Job 4:12 alludes to or echoes that very passage.32 Even if not, however, Jer 23 confirms that ‫ גנב‬retains its normal negative connotations of theft and deception also when used of prophecy. There is no basis for concluding that this is a neutral term for secrecy, nor a technical term for revelation.33 Already in 4:12a, then, a common description of revelation is combined with a term that suggests deception, and maybe even false prophecy.34 In Gen 31:20, 26, the deception is described with the expression ‫גנב את־לב‬, lit. “steal the heart” (cf. also 2 Sam 15:6), but in 31:27 the verb is used simply of deception, not theft: “Why did you flee in secret and deceive me [‫ ]ותגנב אתי‬and not tell me?” Elsewhere, even where the term may refer to theft, it often parallels terms for deception. So in the Ten Commandments, it is followed by bearing false witness (‫ עד שׁקר‬in Exod 20:15–16; ‫עד שׁוא‬ in Deut 5:19–20). In Lev 19:11 it is paralleled by “act deceitfully” (‫ )כחשׁ‬and “lie” (‫;)שׁקר‬ Hos 7:1 and Zech 5:3–4 also parallel ‫ גנב‬with ‫שׁקר‬. 29 The troops “stole” into the city in 2 Sam 19:4[3], Israel accused Judah of “stealing” David away (i.e. turning his heart against Israel) in 2 Sam 19:42[41], and a princess “stole” one of the royal heirs away in 2 Kgs 11:2 // 2 Chr 22:11, so that Athaliah would not kill him. The latter is the only case where the deception appears to be condoned by the text. 30 HARDING, Spirit, 142. 31 Cf. HARDING, Spirit, 141–42. 32 So SCHMID, Schriftdiskussion, 254–55; this is supported by the verbal parallels and the possibility that Jer 23 is reflected also elsewhere in Job, esp. in 13:7–12 and 15:7–8 (that the latter are dependent on Jeremiah is accepted by e.g. BUDDE, Hiob, 78; FOHRER, Hiob, 142; HARDING, Spirit, 141–42; idem, Metaprophecy, 529–533; WEINFELD, Partition, 224–25). 33 WERBLOWSKY, Stealing, 105–6, claims that ‫ גנב‬is a technical term for revelation (followed by FOHRER, Hiob, 142; COTTER, Job 4–5, 179), but there is no evidence for this beyond its use in these two passages (NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 33–34). All of Jeremiah’s other uses of ‫ גנב‬assume that the action is a sin (Jer 2:26; 7:9; 48:27; 49:9), and indeed shameful (Jer 2:26). 34 WEINFELD, Partition, 223–24, connects both Job 4 and Jer 23 to a motif seen elsewhere in the ANE of the surreptitious acquisition of divine knowledge from “behind the curtain,” noting especially Gilgamesh XI.20–26, wherein the secret of the flood is heard through a wall, so that the hero can learn of it and save himself. Weinfeld notes that in the Talmud Job 4:12 is applied to Abraham in just this way, “(Satan) said to him (=Abraham): 28

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The ambiguity continues in 4:12b, where “my ear received” can be used of prophecy,35 but “whisper” (‫ )שׁמץ‬is not a standard term for divine speech. Its only other occurrence in the Hebrew Bible is in 26:14, where it describes the small part of God’s activity that humanity can perceive, which pales in comparison to God’s own might.36 A feminine form also occurs once in Exod 32:25, with connotations of mockery or disgrace.37 Such a sense cannot necessarily be read into the masculine form in Job 4:12, as it is not reflected in any of the versions, but regardless this is not a standard term for revelation. It implies something incomplete, and combined with the use of ‫ גנב‬in 4:12a it suggests a limitation, perhaps even an illegitimacy, to the experience. Thus, from the very first verse we are greeted with two expressions that resemble prophetic revelatory traditions – “to me a word” and “my ear received” – but are tilted in unexpected ways, as the word is “stolen,” and only a “whisper” is received. This suggests that what follows may be revelatory, but its full significance is uncertain and potentially deceptive. The ambiguous import of this “word” and “whisper” are then carried forward into 4:13, where we are told that they came “In troubling thoughts [‫ ]שׂעפים‬from visions of the night [‫]מחזינות לילה‬, when deep sleep [‫]תרדמה‬ falls on mortals.” ‫ חזיון‬appears three other times in Job to refer to visions or dreams, all of which quote or allude to our passage and so will be discussed in later chapters.38 Outside of Job, ‫ חזיון‬and the more common short form ‫חזון‬ A word was brought to me stealthily, so did I hear behind the curtain” (b. Sanhedrin 89b; quoted by WEINFELD, Partition, 224 n. 20; similarly, WERBLOWSKY, Stealing, 105–6). The passage is remarkable, as Satan first quotes several lines from Job 4:2–7 to try to persuade Abraham not to sacrifice Isaac, then quotes 4:12 when Abraham still refuses to listen, thus implying a link between Eliphaz and the Satan, Abraham and Job. The parallel in Gilgamesh is also noteworthy, given that it is itself an act of divine deception. Here the trickster deity Ea/Enki not only allows the flood hero Utnapishtim to learn the secret of the flood by pretending to speak to the wall, but when Utnapishtim asks what he should tell his neighbors, Ea directs him to lie and say that he is under Enlil’s curse and must leave, but that Ea has promised to “rain down abundance” upon them (XI 36–47), using expressions that would normally imply a good harvest, but in fact anticipate the devastating flood. Thus, not only does Ea command Utnapishtim to deceive his neighbors, but the direct result of that deception is their death in the flood (cf. ANDERSON, Divine Trickster, 24). 35 E.g. Jer 9:19; 17:23; cf. Isa 5:9; 50:4–5; Ezek 3:10; 9:1; NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 34. 36 This parallel must be used with caution, however, as it is probable that 26:14 is itself dependent on 4:12 (cf. SEOW, Job, 399). The term also appears twice in Ben Sira (10:10 in MS A and 18:32 in MS C), apparently with the sense of something small or short. 37 Noted by J. GRAY, Job, 154. HALOT 2.1580–81, notes that the LXX translates the term in Exod 32:25 with ἐπίχαρμα, meaning “malignant joy” (LSJ 672), while the Vulgate, Peshitta and Targums all have terms for disgrace, dishonor or bad reputation. In Job 4:12, on the other hand, the LXX translates ‫ שׁמץ‬with ἐξαίσιος, “extraordinary” things (LSJ 582). 38 7:14; 20:8; 33:15.

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always describe either a vision or prophecy of some kind.39 But ‫ חזון‬is also used of deceptive visions, particularly in Jeremiah, where the term is only used of false prophets, who “speak visions [‫ ]חזון‬of their own hearts, not from the mouth of YHWH” (Jer 23:16).40 In Isa 29:7 ‫ חזון לילה‬is used to describe something that passes quickly away, “like a dream, a vision of the night,” in a passage immediately followed by a condemnation of the prophets.41 That such a negative sense could also be in view in Job 4:13 might be implied by the use of ‫ שׂעפים‬and ‫תרדמה‬. The first occurs elsewhere only in 20:2, where the context indicates agitation.42 A similar form (‫ )שׂרעפים‬also appears in Ps 94:19 and 139:23, also with apparent connotations of anxiousness.43 Similarly, ‫ תרדמה‬is generally associated with divine activity, but only with revelation in Gen 15, where “the word [‫ ]דבר‬of YHWH came to Abram in a vision [‫( ”]במחזה‬15:1, cf. 4), then ‫ תרדמה‬precedes a theophany (15:12). Elsewhere it is a kind of divine anesthesia, sometimes sent as an act of judgment.44 Hamori notes that in Isa 29:10–11, YHWH sends ‫ תרדמה‬in order to prevent prophecy: “For YHWH has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep [‫ ;]רוח תרדמה‬he has shut your eyes, you prophets, and covered your heads, you seers [‫]החזים‬. To you the vision [‫ ]חזות‬of all this is like the words of a 39 ‫ חזיון‬occurs only five times outside of Job, always associated with revelation (2 Sam 7:17; Isa 22:1, 5; Joel 3:1[2:28]; Zech 13:4), while the short form ‫ חזון‬usually is as well (e.g. 1 Sam 3:1; 1 Chr 17:15; 2 Chr 32:32; Ps 89:20; Isa 1:1, and often elsewhere). The verb form ‫ חזה‬also appears regularly in connection with prophecy (e.g. Exod 24:11; Num 24:4; Ps 11:7; Isa 1:1; Ezek 12:27). The noun form ‫ חזה‬means “seer,” in the prophetic sense (e.g. 2 Sam 24:11 [//1 Chr 21:9]; Isa 29:10; 30:10; Am 7:12; Mic 3:7). In Dan 2:19 a similar Aramaic phrase also appears, ‫“( בחזוא די־ליליא‬in a vision of the night”; cf. 2:28; 4:2, 6, 7, 10; 7:1, 2, 7, 13, 15, 20). On Daniel’s visions, see e.g. BEHRENS, Visionsschilderungen, 314–345; NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 26–30. Even without the expression, many other visions also occur at night, e.g. Gen 28:10–19; Num 22–23; 1 Sam 3; 1 Kgs 3; Zech 1:8, and the Deir ʿAlla inscription (COS 2.140–145). 40 Cf. also Jer 14:14; Ezek 13:16; Isa 29:7. 41 Ch. Isa 29:9–11. Zophar’s use of ‫ חזיון לילה‬in Job 20:8 is almost identical, and similarly polemical. 42 Cf. the parallel with ‫ חושׁ‬in 20:2, meaning haste or perhaps pain (CDCH 111). This parallel must again be treated with caution as Zophar probably alludes to the vision. 43 DHORME, Job, 49–50; cf. HABEL, Job, 127; NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 35. POPE, Job, 36–37, translates ‫“ שׂעפים‬disquieting thoughts” or “nightmares.” 44 ‫ תרדמה‬occurs only five times outside of Job, four of which are directly caused by God: in Gen 15:12 it precedes Abram’s vision, but in Gen 2:21 it simply anesthetizes Adam in preparation for the creation of Eve, and in 1 Sam 26:12 and Isa 29:10 it is a sign of God’s rejection of the recipients; only Prov 19:15 uses the term in a mundane sense. The verb ‫ רדם‬appears seven times, with similar associations: In Ps 76:7[6] it results from God’s rebuke, and something like that may be implied in Judg 4:21 and Jon 1:5–6, though it is not explicit in either case (and CLINES, Byronic Suggestion, 746, doubts that this should be read in); in Dan 8:18 and 10:9 ‫ רדם‬precedes visionary experiences; but in Prov 10:5 it may be nothing more than the mundane sleep of the lazy.

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sealed book.” In context, this blinding of the prophets is an act of judgment on an unfaithful people, so it is possible that the use of the term in Job 4:13 also implies blinding rather than enlightenment. Yet the text does not force such a sense. As Harding emphasizes, such close parallels both to the vision of Abram in Gen 15 and to the blinding of the seers in Isa 29 leave the intent of these “visions of the night” ambivalent.45 This is true not only because we cannot be sure if Job has Gen 15, Isa 29 or both in view, but also because it is unclear whether ‫ תרדמה‬even refers to the visionary in Job 4:13. Clines and Cotter think 4:13b is epexegetical; that is, the visions came while others slept, but the speaker could not.46 This is implied by the plural ‫ אנשׁים‬in 4:13b, where the surrounding verses are in the first-person singular. It is also supported by the use of ‫ שׂעפים‬in 4:13a, which implies that the speaker was kept awake by his thoughts. In that case, the use of ‫ תרדמה‬might even contrast with its application to Abram, who fell into such a “deep sleep” as a prelude to a vision. Cotter thus concludes that the speaker – whom he assumes to be Eliphaz – “wants to be a prophet seeing visions, and like the patriarchs, overcome by the sleep of God, [but] simply does not have it quite right. He is awake when he should be asleep.”47 The assertion that the speaker wants to experience visions is without foundation, but Cotter may be correct that the application of ‫ תרדמה‬to others, not to the speaker, could further undermine this vision. Harding notes that even the negative use of the term in Isa 29 could play off the expectation that ‫ תרדמה‬normally “falls” [‫ ]נפל‬on prophets as a prelude to revelation, whereas here it is “poured out” [‫ ]נסך‬in judgment (Isa 29:10).48 Thus, whether ‫ תרדמה‬portends revelation, as in Gen 15:12, or its absence, as in Isa 29:10, the purpose of the “visions” in Job 4:13 is ambivalent. Is the speaker alone recipient of divine knowledge while others sleep, or are his disquieting thoughts and lack of “deep sleep” themselves a signal of the vision’s illicit nature?49 45

HARDING, Spirit, 143–46. Cf. CLINES, Byronic Suggestion, 745–47, insists that the use of ‫ תרדמה‬to describe divinely-induced sleep should not be uncritically applied to all occurrences. He translates 4:13, “As I lay troubled by anxious thoughts aroused by night visions, while other men slumbered peacefully…” (747). He believes this also makes good sense of 33:15. COTTER, Job 4–5, 181–82, agrees that ‫ תרדמה‬is epexegetical, but denies Clines’ conclusion that this was merely a generic term for deep sleep. 47 COTTER, Job 4–5, 181–82. 48 HARDING, Spirit, 145–46. This deep sleep “falls” on people, or God causes it to fall (‫ ;נפל‬Hiph) in all other cases (Gen 2:21; 15:12; 1 Sam 26:12; Prov 19:15; Job 4:13; 33:15; FOHRER, Hiob, 142; CLINES, Byronic Suggestion, 745). But the use of ‫ תרדמה‬with ‫ נפל‬in 1 Sam 26:12, where it is a reflection of Saul’s rejection as king, implies that the term is not inherently associated with revelation, even when used with ‫נפל‬. 49 Further, if the use of ‫ תרדמה‬in 4:13 does indicate judgment, an epexegetical reading would then condemn the whole human race (“mortals”), which would seem improbable if not for the fact that the vision itself implies precisely that in 4:17–21. 46

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In Gen 15:12 the “deep sleep” that fell upon Abram was accompanied by “a great dark terror” (‫)אימה חשׁכה גדלה‬, and something similar occurs in Job 4:14, “Dread [‫ ]פחד‬has befallen me, and trembling [‫]רעדה‬, which made all my bones shake [‫ ;פחד‬Hiph].” Fear is a common response to theophany – as reflected in the common injunction to “Fear not!”50 – but this is surprisingly rare among vision reports.51 Genesis 15 and Isa 21 are unusual in foregrounding the fear of the recipient, and Job 4 follows suit, placing the speaker’s “dread” at the center of the account. Nor is this the “fear” (‫ )יראה‬commonly associated with piety, in Job as elsewhere.52 Instead, the term used in 4:14, ‫פחד‬, most often refers to the “dread” that accompanies God’s judgment, whether on Israel or its enemies, the wicked or the suffering.53 Fyall and others take this term as evidence that this is not a divine revelation at all, but rather “a brilliant deception of the enemy.”54 This goes too far, as ‫ פחד‬is nowhere associated with the Satan, but throughout Job it is tied to God’s own judgment.55 Nevertheless, this is not the reaction prophetic visions normally produce, so it adds to the hints of judgment already seen in 4:13–14. The reference to trembling supports this. ‫ רעדה‬appears only three other times. Of these, Ps 48:7 refers to the distress of a woman in labor, but Ps 2:11 speaks of “fear and trembling” before YHWH, “lest he be angered, and you perish in your way, for his anger is quickly kindled” (2:12). Only in Isa 33:14 is ‫ רעדה‬paired with ‫פחד‬, where it describes the fear and trembling of the wicked before YHWH’s “burning fire” (cf. 33:10–14). In employing such language, the vision in Job 4 raises a serious question: If this “dread” is a sign of God’s presence, is its purpose to enlighten the visionary, or to condemn him? The tension reaches a climax in the closing depiction of a ‫ רוח‬in 4:15–16, “Then a spirit [‫ ]רוח‬passes [‫ ]חלף‬before my face, and the hair [‫ ]שׂערת‬of my flesh bristles. It stands still, but I cannot recognize its appearance [‫]מראה‬. A 50 51

‫ ;אל־תירא‬e.g. Gen 15:1; 21:17; 26:24; 46:3; Judg 6:23.

Of the vision reports discussed by BEHRENS, Visionsschilderungen, only Daniel mentions fear (8:27; 10:12, 19), while other visionary accounts that emphasize terror (esp. Gen 15; Isa 21) tend to be unconventional in other ways as well. 52 Cf. Job 6:14; 28:28; perhaps 4:6; 15:4; 22:4; cf. Exod 20:20; 2 Chr 19:9; Ps 5:8[7]; 111:10; Prov 1:7; 9:10; Isa 11:2–3. 53 E.g. Exod 15:16; Deut 2:25; 11:25; 28:66–67; 1 Chr 14:17; 2 Chr 14:13[14]; 17:10; 20:29; Est 8:17; 9:2, 3; Ps 14:5; 53:6[5]; 105:28; Isa 2:10, 19, 21; 19:16–17; 24:17–18; 44:11; Jer 48:43–44; 49:5; Mic 7:17. It is occasionally used of “the fear of YHWH” in other connections (1 Sam 11:7; 2 Chr 19:7; Ps 36:2[1]). It is also sometimes used of those one should not fear (Ps 27:1; 78:53; 91:5; Isa 12:2; 44:8; 51:13), or of the fear experienced by those who scorn wisdom (Prov 1:26–33; cf. 3:24–25). Only very rarely is it used of fearing someone other than YHWH (e.g. an enemy in Ps 64:2). 54 FYALL, Eyes, 146. Similarly, COTTER, Job 4–5, 182. For additional bibliography, see the Introduction, Section A.II above. 55 Cf. 3:25, 13:11; 15:21; 21:9; 22:10; 23:15; 25:2; 31:23; SZCZYGIEL, Hiob, 52.

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form [‫ ]תמונה‬is in front of my eyes – silence [‫]דממה‬, then I hear a voice [‫]קול‬.”56 These two verses, even more than what precedes them, bristle with conflicting associations. In Job as elsewhere, ‫ רוח‬appears with a variety of senses. Early critical commentators generally translated it here with “breeze,” “breath,” or “wind.”57 The second half of 4:15 has also been taken to support such a connection. The most natural reading is something like “the hair [‫ ]שׂערת‬of my flesh bristles,” but ‫( שׂערת‬from ‫ )שׂערה‬could also be an alternate spelling of ‫סערה‬, the “whirlwind” of Job 38:1; 40:6.58 If this is intentional, ‫ סערה‬is virtually always used in the context of theophany,59 and Harding notes that the term is linked several times to divine judgment against false or disobedient prophets.60 Paul notes Akkadian parallels to “the hair of his body” standing on end as a result of supernatural encounters, and suggests a double-entendre.61 But of course ‫ רוח‬can also refer to a “spirit,” whether God’s own,62 or one distinct from God.63 That ‫ רוח‬does refer to a “spirit” here is implied especially by the verb ‫ עמד‬in 4:16, as it is obvious that a “wind” or “breath” cannot “stand,” even if it can “pass by” (‫ ;חלף‬in 4:15). Nor can a wind have an “appearance” or “form,” so those who deny that a “spirit” is in view must assume an unidentified subject for ‫עמד‬, which is then also the reference for the “ap56 CLINES, Job, 1.130, notes that the shift from descriptive perfect verbs in 4:14 to historical imperfects in 4:15–16 (and also in 4:12) “adds to the vividness of the scene.” 57 This was true even of those, like DILLMANN, Hiob, 40–41, who considered the whole account an “Offenbarung” or “revelation” (36, 41, 44; similarly, HOFFMANN, Hiob, 11, though cf. 41; E. C. S. GIBSON, Job, 21–22). Like Dillmann, BUDDE, Hiob, 19, also translates it “Wehen.” DELITZSCH, Hiob, 23, translates it with “Hauch,” HOFFMANN, Hiob, 41, with “Wind.” Even FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 348, translates it with “a breath of air” and insists that it cannot mean “spirit.” By contrast, HUFNAGEL, Hiob, 15, and DUHM, Hiob, 7, translated it with “Geist,” and Coleman, Job, 14, with “spirit.” 58 HABEL, Job, 115, following DAHOOD, Storm, 544–45; cf. also COTTER, Job 4–5, 184–85; rejected by FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 350. Cf. Nah 1:3 for the spelling with ‫שׂ‬. This is supported by at least one Targum (noted by DHORME, Job, 51, who nonetheless denies that this should be read into the Hebrew), and is reflected in Job 9:17, which also has ‫ שׂערה‬in a context that could allow either “hair” or “storm.” 59 E.g. Exod 19:16; 2 Kgs 2:1, 11; Ezek 1:4. 60 Jer 23:19–20 (cf. 20:23–24); Ezek 13:11–13; Jon 1:12; HARDING, Metaprophecy, 532. 61 PAUL, Hair-Raising, 119–121. 62 E.g. Job 33:4; Gen 1:2; 6:3; Ps 104:30; 139:7; 143:10; Isa 34:16; 40:7, 13; 63:10–14; Ezek 37:5–14; Hag 2:5; Zech 4:6. Many passages speak of God’s spirit being “poured out” on or “filling” human beings, equipping them for various tasks (e.g. Exod 31:3; Judg 3:10; 6:34; 1 Sam 11:6; 16:13; 2 Sam 23:2; Neh 9:20; Isa 11:2; 42:1; 61:1; Ezek 2:2; 36:26–27; Joel 3:1–2[2:28–29]). On this concept, see MACDONALD, Spirit of YHWH, 95–120. 63 Cf. Judg 9:23; 1 Sam 16:14–23; 18:10; 19:9; 1 Kgs 22:21–24 (//2 Chr 18:20–23); 2 Kgs 19:7 (//Isa 37:7); Isa 19:14 (cf. 19:3); 29:10; cf. Ps 18:11[10] (//2 Sam 22:11); Ps 104:4; Ezek 1:20–21(?); 10:17; Hos 4:12; 5:4; Zech 6:5; 13:2.

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pearance” and “form.” To support this, it has been claimed that ‫ רוח‬typically refers to a wind when masculine (as ‫ חלף‬and ‫ עמד‬are both masculine),64 and that a ‫ רוח‬is nowhere else used of a visible form (an “apparition”) in the Hebrew Bible.65 Both generalizations are disproven by the vision in 1 Kgs 22, where ‫ רוח‬is both masculine and assumed to have a form, as it also “stands” (‫)עמד‬: “Then a certain spirit came forward and stood [‫ ]עמד‬before YHWH and said: ‘I will deceive him’” (1 Kgs 22:21).66 A number of other visions also claim that God or some heavenly figure “stood” or “stationed himself” near the visionary, using ‫ עמד‬or ‫( יצב‬Hitp), even if the one standing is not called a “spirit.”67 Therefore it is most likely that the use of ‫ עמד‬in Job 4:16 does refer to the ‫רוח‬, implying that it is a “spirit,” and not merely a wind, though the two options need not be too strongly distinguished.68 But if this is a “spirit,” what does its appearance forebode? When it refers to God’s “spirit,” ‫ רוח‬is regularly associated with prophecy, but not always.69 In Job ‫ רוח‬is rarely linked to divine speech,70 but regularly associated with judgment, including just before this in 4:9: “By the breath of God they perish, and by the spirit [‫ ]רוח‬of his anger they are consumed.”71 Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, this sense is especially prominent when a divine ‫ רוח‬is distinguished from God’s own spirit.72 The ‫ רוח‬in Job 4 is not identified, and the language used to describe it is ambivalent. If it is the subject of ‫חלף‬, the verb CLINES, Job, 1.111, asserts that ‫“ רוח‬always” refers to a wind when masculine, including in 1:19 and 41:8[16], as well as Exod 10:13; Num 5:14; Eccl 1:6; 3:19. 65 FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 348–49, denies that ‫ רוח‬can mean “spirit” in 4:15, since it is never used of an apparition in the way that πνεῦμα is at times used in the New Testament (also noted by POPE, Job, 37). 66 HARDING, Spirit, 147–48; J. GRAY, Job, 155, and CAESAR, New Thesis, 438. 67 For instance, ‫ עמד‬is used of the seraphim in Isa 6:2. ‫ יצב‬is used of the “sons of God” and the Satan in Job 1:6; 2:1 and of “the four winds” in Zech 6:5, all standing before YHWH, and it is used of YHWH in Gen 28:13; 1 Sam 3:10; the by-form ‫ נצב‬appears in Am 9:1. 68 Compare the pairing of “sons of God” and “morning stars” in 38:7. In Ezek 1 ‫רוח‬ seems to mean both “spirit” and “wind,” perhaps at the same time (cf. Ezek 1:4, 12, 20– 21). 69 E.g. Num 11:29; 24:2; 1 Sam 10:10; 19:20, 23; 2 Sam 23:2; 1 Kgs 18:12; 2 Kgs 2:16; 2 Chr 15:1; 20:14; 24:20; Neh 9:20, 30; Isa 61:1; Ezek 2:2; 11:24; Hos 9:7; Joel 3:12[2:28–29]; Mic 3:8; Zech 7:12. Though focused on a later period, UM, Temple Christology, 68–129, argues that enabling prophecy was only one the roles attributed to God’s spirit in the Hebrew Bible and later Jewish literature. For instance, the Spirit was often associated with (new) creation and life-giving, especially in such eschatological contexts (e.g. Gen 1:2; 2:7; Job 33:4; Ps 104:30; Isa 32:15; 42:5; 44:3; Ezek 25:26; 36:26; 37:5–6, 10, 14). 70 And only by Elihu (32:8, 18; cf. 33:4), and possibly Zophar (20:3). 71 Cf. also 1:19; 15:30; 21:18; 26:13; 30:15, 22. The opposite link, between the spirit and life, is also occasionally seen, e.g. 12:10; 34:14–15. 72 Cf. Judg 9:23; 1 Sam 16:14–23; 18:10; 19:9; 1 Kgs 22:21–24 (//2 Chr 18:20–23); 2 Kgs 19:7 (//Isa 37:7); Isa 19:14 (cf. 19:3); 29:1; cf. HAMORI, Spirit, 15-30. 64

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occurs in the Qal four other times in Job, one of which simply implies swift movement – days go by like skiffs (9:26) – but the other three are all associated with divine violence (9:11–12; 11:10–11; 20:24).73 What then of the “passing by” of the ‫ רוח‬in 4:15 itself? Is it also a sign of judgment? In most other visions in the Hebrew Bible, it is explicit that the one encountered was God himself or God’s messenger, but in this case the figure is not only unidentified, but the speaker seems unsure who stands before him.74 “Appearance” (‫ )מראה‬and “form” (‫ )תמונה‬are both regularly associated with the divine, but not necessarily tied to God himself.75 Cotter emphasizes that the use of these two terms does not simply reflect the expected invisibility of God,76 since 4:16 claims that the form was seen “in front of my eyes,” yet still was not recognized.77 This, combined with the fact that the whole account fails to identify the source of the vision, strongly implies that the figure was unrecognizable for the speaker, leaving the purpose of its appearance still further in doubt. Finally, the vision concludes with “silence” (‫ )דממה‬and “a voice” (‫)קול‬. ‫קול‬ can also carry theophanic overtones in such a context, and its combination with ‫ דממה‬may allude to Elijah’s experience of the voice of God (‫)קול דממה‬ in 1 Kgs 19:12–13, as ‫ דממה‬does not appear anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible.78 Gray thinks the parallel with 1 Kgs 19 may be intended by Eliphaz to support his own authority, as a prophet like Elijah,79 while Fullerton, Cotter 73 See below. The verb also appears in the Hiph in 14:7 and 29:20, with a different sense. 74 HABEL, Job, 127–28, thinks the subject of ‫ עמד‬is deliberately ambiguous. 75 FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 350. ‫ מראה‬can mean “appearance” in the mundane sense, but frequently it is used of the “appearance” of God (Exod 24:17; Num 12:8; 1 Sam 3:15; cf. Exod 3:3), or an angel, sometimes in the sense of a visitation or apparition (Judg 13:6; Dan 8:15; Dan 10:6, 18; cf. Ezek 1:5, 13–16, 26–28; 10:1, 9–10, 22). It is also frequently used of a divine “vision” (Gen 46:2; Num 12:6; Ezek 1:1; 8:2–4; 11:24; 40:2–3; 43:3; Dan 8:16, 26–27; 9:23; 10:1, 7–8, 16). The only other occurrence in Job describes Leviathan (41:1[9]). ‫ תמונה‬is much less common, and used exclusively of the “form” of God on the one hand (Num 12:8; Deut 4:12, 15; Ps 17:15), or an idol on the other (Exod 20:4; Deut 4:16, 23, 25; 5:8). It does not occur elsewhere in Job. 76 COTTER, Job 4–5, 182–83; cf. the insistence that God’s “form” (‫ )תמונה‬could not be seen, but only God’s “voice” (‫ )קול‬heard, in Deut 4:12, 15, but contrast Num 12:8 and Ps 17:5, in which Moses and the Psalmist do see God’s “form” (‫)תמונה‬. Neither expresses any doubt as to whose form was seen. 77 COTTER, Job 4–5, 185, concludes that it is “very clear that Eliphaz was face to face with this specter and did not know him.” 78 With different language, Ps 107:29 also describes a “stillness” accompanying the appearance of God. For other uses of ‫ קול‬as a divine voice, cf. e.g. Gen 3:8, 10; Exod 19:16; 20:18; Num 7:89; Deut 4:12, 33, 36; 5:22–26; 18:16; Isa 30:30; Jer 51:16; Ps 29:3–4; Ezek 1:28; Job 37:2–5; 40:9. In the vision in Isa 6, Isaiah also “heard the voice” (‫)ואשׁמע את־קול‬ of YHWH (6:8), much as the speaker in Job 4:16 “heard a voice” (‫)וקול אשׁמע‬. 79 J. GRAY, Job, 155.

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and Seow believe the allusion sets up a contrast with Elijah, who experienced an appearance of YHWH himself, while Eliphaz remains uncertain of the identity of the “spirit.”80 But as with so much else in this vision, the sense is ambiguous, and even if it does refer to God’s own voice, that too is described elsewhere in Job exclusively as a reflection of God’s power.81 So Elihu uses ‫ קול‬five times in 37:2–5 to depict God’s creative power, and in 40:9–13 YHWH asks Job whether he can thunder with a voice like God’s, bringing the wicked low. Together, these terms complete the association of this vision with the divine, but leave open what kind of a theophany this is. Is the visionary claiming to be a prophet like Jeremiah, Abram or Elijah, passing along a word of revelation, or is something more troubling implied? Though the vision’s overall structure resembles the prophetic vision reports, and it boasts several verbal links to other visions and theophanies, many of its expressions can be tied at least as strongly to acts of divine judgment, while the pronounced refusal of the text to identify its source deepens the questions surrounding the vision’s purpose. If this is a revelation, is its goal the enlightenment or the condemnation of its recipient? The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but as we will now see, they can be. II. The Role of the “Spirit” and the Purpose of the Vision Of all the differences between this vision and others in the Hebrew Bible, the most significant is its steadfast refusal to specify who was encountered. It describes “a word,” not “the word of YHWH,” “a spirit,” not “the spirit of God,” “a voice,” not “the voice of the Almighty.” And even when it stood “in front of my eyes,” the speaker still could not “recognize its appearance” (4:16). As noted in the Introduction, a number of scholars conclude from this that the vision is not from God at all, but rather the Satan. Yet the anonymous character of the vision cuts both ways. Even if read in light of the prologue, there is no more to link this to the Satan than to YHWH himself. Though the traditional background to the vision’s language and imagery is diverse, virtually all of it is tied to God or his agents elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, and even in Job’s prologue, it is debatable to what extent the Satan is himself YHWH’s agent.82 Most likely, then, the anonymity of the word, spirit and voice in 4:12–16 is deliberate, and serves to underline the ambivalent purpose

80

FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 350–51; COTTER, Job 4–5, 185–86: SEOW, Job, 388. Job 37:2–5; 40:9. Such an association between the divine voice and displays of power are also seen elsewhere, most prominently in Ps 29:3–9. Eliphaz uses the term only once, of the “sound of terrors” heard by the wicked (15:21). 82 This and other aspects of the vision’s relation to the prologue will be discussed in Chapter Five, Section A.IV. 81

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of the vision as a whole. That is, the primary question 4:12–16 raises is not who the vision came from, but why it was sent. We have seen several parallels between the description of the “spirit” in 4:15–16 and that in 1 Kgs 22:21. In Micaiah’s vision as well the ‫ רוח‬is masculine, anonymous, and described as “coming” and “standing,” in this case before YHWH. The significance of the parallel runs deeper, however, as the role of the “spirit” in 1 Kgs 22 is explicitly to deceive and condemn the one to whom it is sent. The whole account in 22:19–22 is framed according to the prophetic vision report genre, as the prophet Micaiah describes what he “saw” in the divine throne-room in 22:19, followed by what YHWH “said” in 22:20. In this case, however, it is not the prophet who responds to YHWH’s question, but the “spirit,” who is commissioned with the task of deception: 19

Then Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of YHWH: I saw YHWH sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing before him on his right and on his left.20 And YHWH said, ‘Who will deceive [‫ ]פתה‬Ahab, so that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead?’ Then one said this, and another said that, 21 until a certain spirit came forward and stood before YHWH, saying, ‘I will deceive [‫ ]פתה‬him.’ 22 So YHWH asked him, ‘How?’ and he said, ‘I will go out and be a spirit of falsehood in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then he said, ‘You shall deceive [‫ ]פתה‬him, and you shall succeed. Go out and do so.’”

This “spirit” is distinguished from YHWH, but it is not an adversary of YHWH; it is sent by YHWH himself.83 Nevertheless, its intent is explicitly to deceive Ahab, leading to his death, which is described in 22:34–38. The whole chapter satirizes Ahab’s court, so it is not to be assumed that this vision should be taken entirely at face value. Moberly argues that the vision’s purpose is not to show that YHWH has in fact deceived Ahab’s prophets, but rather to parody and unmask their own deception.84 This is no doubt true, but Anderson is also correct that the satirical edge should not obscure the fact that YHWH is depicted as a participant in the deception, indeed as its principle instigator.85 If this were only an isolated incident, it could probably be dismissed as mere literary license, but it is only one example of a large number of texts across the Hebrew Bible in which YHWH is depicted sending an intermediary with the specific intent to deceive and condemn. As already noted, 1 Kgs 22:19–22 itself is very likely dependent on Isa 6, which also climaxes in an explicit act of divine deception, this time carried 83 ANDERSON, Divine Trickster, 19; CHISHOLM, Does God Deceive, 11–28, esp. 12–17; ROBERTS, Divine Deceit, 211–220, esp. 216–17. The spirit “stands before YHWH,” and further seems to be distinguished from “the spirit of YHWH” referred to in 22:24, just as “the spirit of YHWH” left Saul before the “evil spirit” came to him in 1 Sam 16:14. 84 MOBERLY, Does God Lie, 1–23. BEHRENS, Visionsschilderungen, 175–79, notes that particularly in 1 Kgs 22 we seem to have a number of deliberate reversals of typical prophetic imagery, used to mock the prophets of Ahab. 85 ANDERSON, Divine Trickster, 20.

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out through the prophet rather than a “spirit” (6:8–13).86 Isaiah is called to blind the eyes, stop the ears and dull the minds of God’s people, so that they will not repent (6:8–10). Nor is this portrayed as a temporary measure; it is to be Isaiah’s task “Until cities are ruins without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly devastated” (6:11).87 Here again the purpose of the deception is to initiate judgment, a motif seen often elsewhere, for instance when Moses is instructed to mislead Pharaoh (Exod 3:18–22; 14:1–4), and Samuel is instructed to mislead Saul (1 Sam 16:1–2).88 There are even cases that explicitly refer to the deception of prophets. Ezekiel 14:9 is most forthright in spelling this out: “If a prophet is deceived [‫ ]פתה‬and speaks a word, I, YHWH, have deceived [‫ ]פתה‬that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him, and destroy him from among my people Israel.” ‫ פתה‬is the same verb used three times of the spirit’s task in 1 Kgs 22:20–22, and again the goal of the deception is the destruction of the one whom YHWH deceives. Nor is it only through human agents that YHWH is portrayed using deception. Hamori has demonstrated that a number of texts in the Hebrew Bible refer to a divine ‫ רוח‬that is distinguished from YHWH’s own “spirit,” and that such spirits are generally depicted as agents of judgment, sent specifically to deceive and condemn.89 Besides 1 Kgs 22 itself, other examples include the “evil spirit” (‫ )רוח־רעה‬YHWH sent to Saul in 1 Samuel 16, 18 and 19, as another sign of his rejection as king. YHWH also sent an “evil spirit” (‫)רוח רעה‬ against Abimelech and the citizens of Shechem in Judg 9:23–24, to avenge their murder of the seventy sons of Jerubbaal. He “put a spirit in” the Assyrian king Sennacherib, “so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land” (2 Kgs 19:7). Isaiah 29 also probably has this motif in view, and like 1 Kgs 22, ties the pouring out of a “spirit” to the deception of prophets specifically.90 86

On the dependence of 1 Kgs 22 on Isa 6, cf. BEHRENS, Visionsschilderungen, 156– 163, 182. 87 KNOHL, Does God Deceive, 275–291; followed by ANDERSON, Divine Trickster, 21. 88 On Moses’ deception of Pharaoh, at YHWH’s command, cf. ANDERSON, Divine Trickster, 18–19, NICHOLAS, Trickster Revisited, 63–68, and WILLIAMS, Deception, 62. ESAU, Deception, 4–17, suggests that this reflects war-time policies, in which not only deception, but also other practices normally deemed immoral are instead considered justified (e.g. killing, plundering, etc.). As he admits, however, this cannot explain all divine deception (15); it also ignores the link with judgment in this and similar cases. Other examples of divinely initiated deception appear in 2 Sam 17:14; 24:1 (cf. 24:10–17); 2 Kgs 6:15–20; 7:6–7; Jer 4:10; Ezek 14:1–11; cf. ANDERSON, Divine Trickster, 19–22; CRENSHAW, Whirlpool, 31–56, esp. 41; KNOHL, Does God Deceive, 275–291. ANDERSON, Divine Trickster, argues that the Jacob cycle also implicates God in deception at numerous points (esp. Gen 25:23–34; 27:1–45; 30:37–31:27). 89 HAMORI, Spirit, 15–30. 90 Cf. also Isa 19:13–14; Hos 4:12–5:4 (in light of Hos 9:7; 12:2[1]); and Zech 13:2–6, which refers to the end of prophecy and the “unclean spirit” (13:2), and predicts that any

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Such texts reflect a widespread assumption that God can and does use deception as a means of initiating judgment against the guilty, most often through a prophet or anonymous “spirit.” In that light, the anonymous “spirit” in Job 4, combined with the references to a “stolen” word (4:12a), a “whisper” (4:21b),91 “troubling thoughts” (4:13a), “deep sleep” (4:13b), “dread” and “trembling” (4:14), all support an allusion to such traditions of divine deception, as Harding and Hamori emphasize.92 This is not, therefore, a simple question of whether the vision comes from YHWH or the Satan, as though the former implies its legitimacy as revelation, and the latter proves it a “brilliant deception.”93 Given the parallels in 1 Kgs 22, Isa 29 and many other texts, it is entirely possible for YHWH himself to be depicted as the source of a deceptive word, leading to the destruction of the recipient. Unlike those texts, however, Job 4:12–16 apparently reports the perspective of the one deceived. In 1 Kgs 22 the vision is given to the true prophet (Micaiah), but the spirit was sent to the ones deceived (Ahab and his prophets; though cf. 1 Kgs 22:24). Similarly, in Isa 29:10–11 the “spirit of deep sleep” ensures that the prophets and seers (‫ )החזים‬will not be able to see, that is, not be able to prophesy or see visions, but it is the true prophet who announces this fate. In Job both roles are combined in one person, who is both the recipient of the vision and the apparent victim of its deception. This is not unparalleled, however, as something similar appears in the confessions of Jeremiah. He also complains that YHWH has deceived him, to his harm: “You have deceived [‫ ;פתה‬Pi] me, O YHWH, and I was deceived [‫;פתה‬ Niph]; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed” (Jer 20:7a).94 There are several notable links between that passage and this one that could establish an allusion, and the presence of other likely allusions to Jer 20 in who claim to be prophets will be put to death, “for you speak lies in the name of YHWH” (13:3). In Job 1:19, a ‫ רוח גדולה‬kills Job’s children. As Hamori notes, it is not to be assumed that the same spirit is in view in all of these texts, only that such a function could be given by God to some “spirit” or other in a variety of contexts (18). Similarly, BLAIR, DeDemonizing, argues that a number of figures within the Hebrew Bible that are commonly referred to as “demons” in later tradition (esp. Azazel, Lilith, Deber, Qeteb and Resheph) are not clearly demonic within the Hebrew Bible, or not necessarily to be distinguished from God’s “angels.” Instead, these carry out “functions (to bring destruction) that any of Yahweh’s angels could take on” (216). 91 Cf. the use of ‫“( שׁמץ‬whisper”) in 4:12 with ‫“( שׁמצה‬derision”?) in Exod 32:25 and ‫“( שׁמועה‬rumor”) in 2 Kgs 19:7. 92 HAMORI, Spirit, 24–25; HARDING, Spirit, 161–65. Job’s language is especially close to 1 Kgs 22:19–22 and Isa 29:7–11, as we have seen, and Harding further suggests that a link to 1 Kgs 22 can be supported though the similarity between that scene in the divine council and the scenes in heaven in Job’s prologue, raising the possibility that Job 4 reflects the human side of a similar scene (161). 93 Contra FYALL, Eyes, 146. 94 Cf. Jer 4:10; 15:18; ANDERSON, Divine Trickster, 21; CRENSHAW, Whirlpool, 41.

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Job supports this possibility.95 Even if 4:12–16 does not allude to Jer 20:7, however, the two passages share a common perspective, which casts a further layer of ambiguity on the vision. For despite Jeremiah’s complaint, he remains YHWH’s prophet. YHWH’s “word” may feel “like a burning fire shut up in my bones [‫( ”]בעצמתי‬Jer 20:9), but it is not untrue, only unbearable. Could it be that the vision in Job 4, which “makes my bones [‫ ]עצמותי‬shake” (4:14) is similarly perceived? In the end, the very allusiveness of the text leaves its implications ambivalent. The hints of divine judgment and deception are there, but so also are the parallels to more positive revelatory theophanies, such as Abram’s vision and Elijah’s theophany. Taking these disparate terms and allusions as a whole, then, what is the central point of this visionary account? It is clearly two-fold: First, despite its diversity, much of this language can be associated with revelation, and its overall structure is surely meant to recall the common vision report genre. This establishes that the following message is not simply the speaker’s own ideas – it is a word “to me,” a voice he heard, or at least halfheard. That it came amidst visions and the appearance of a spirit implies that this is no mundane experience, but something remarkable and unusual, lending gravity and solemnity to the words that follow. At the same time, however, this language of revelation cannot be separated from the equally strong emphasis on the uncanny, disturbing, confusing and terrifying nature of the experience. Every one of the expressions that tie this to revelation is twisted in some unique and troubling way. The “word to me” does not simply come from God, it is “stolen,” implying deception. What “my ear received” is not a clear “word of YHWH,” but only “a whisper.” It came amidst “visions,” but visions that produce “troubling thoughts,” keeping the visionary awake while “deep sleep” falls on other mortals – an expression that could imply either revelation or judgment on humankind as a whole. Further, the primary effect of this vision is not understanding and enlightenment, but a corporeal dread and trembling, shaking him to his very bones. This is not ordinary language for awe in the presence of God; it is associated with the terror experienced by the wicked in the face of God’s judgment. Finally, a “spirit” rushes past his face, and makes the hair of his flesh bristle, but when it stands still, he does not recognize it. Its form and appearance are right “in front of my eyes,” yet he does not know it. There is a silence, and then a voice – but whose voice? Even in introducing this vision, therefore, the text implies that its coming may be an act of judgment against its recipient. The visionary neither affirms nor denies that it comes from God, but he implies that it is deceptive, and 95 This possibility will be explored in Chapter Three, Section A.II. For recent defenses of Job’s dependence on Jeremiah, including his confessions, cf. GREENSTEIN, Inspiration, 98–110; DELL, Cursed, 106–117, though neither links Jer 20 to Job 4:12–16.

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alludes to traditions of a “spirit” which God himself sends to confuse and condemn. With such an introduction, what kind of a message could induce such dread? Is it truly just a “banal” affirmation that none can be perfectly righteous? Such an introduction should lead us to expect a more troubling oracle, and a closer look at 4:17–21 reveals precisely that. Here as well what first seems like a straightforward contrast between God and his creation develops into something much more disturbing. Indeed, as we will now see, a similar tension regarding God’s judgment also stands at the heart of the message in 4:17–21, and remains unresolved.

B. Untrustworthy Servants and the Human Condition in 4:17–21 B. Untrustworthy Servants and the Human Condition

Part of the ambivalence of this vision is the way its message seems to undermine its messenger. Job 4:17–21 is presented as a revelation through a “spirit,” yet it affirms that God mistrusts his own servants and messengers (4:18). That mortals “perish forever without notice” (4:20) also gives new resonance to the hints of deception and condemnation seen in 4:12–16. Judgment seems to remain in the foreground, as the righteousness and purity of mortals before, or compared to, God are directly challenged in 4:17, while 4:18–21 comes to a surprisingly pessimistic conclusion: 17

Can a mortal be righteous before [or: more righteous than] God, or can a man be pure before [or: purer than] his maker? 18 If he does not trust his servants, and to his messengers he imputes error, 19 how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust? They are crushed before a moth, 20 from morning to evening they are destroyed; they perish forever without notice. 21 Is not their cord pulled up within them? They die, and not in wisdom.

In line with the prophetic vision report genre, this begins with a question, but if this is a revelation, it is certainly an unusual one.96 Some wonder why so “banal” a question warranted such an introduction, particularly if 4:17 is read with a comparative sense: “So trivial a commonplace as that man is not more 96

Cf. BEHRENS, Visionsschilderungen, esp. 56–60. The spoken portion of the vision begins with a question in Am 7:8; 8:2; Isa 6:8; Jer 24:3; Zech 1:9; 1 Kgs 22:20; cf. also Num 22:9; 1 Kgs 3:5; Am 7:2; 7:5. That the speaker is God or his messenger is probably implied by the same connection, as Job 4:17–21 is not a dialogue and in all other cases God or his messenger has the last word, never the recipient (so BEHRENS, Visionsschilderungen, 60).

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righteous than God needed no vision to declare it.”97 The problem is especially acute if the revelation is confined to 4:17 alone, as a few commentators suggest.98 But is the question in 4:17 as easily answered as this implies? The Hebrew Bible is hardly univocal regarding the possibility of human righteousness, and the book of Job in particular voices several starkly conflicting views on the subject. Further, whether 4:18–21 is itself part of the vision or the speaker’s own conclusion from it, the answer it implies is much more troubling than is generally admitted. Not only does it offer no hint of a solution to humanity’s lowly status, but it fails to even clarify the reason for it. Like its introduction, the message of the vision remains ambiguous, on several levels. Lexically, the preposition ‫ מן‬in 4:17, the hapax ‫ תהלה‬in 4:18, and expressions ‫ לפני־עשׁ‬in 4:19, ‫ מבלי משׂים‬in 4:20, and ‫ לא בחכמה‬in 4:21 are all open to multiple interpretations. Structurally, the relations between verses 17, 18 and 19–21 all remain uncertain, as does the possibility of a modal sense to the imperfect verbs used throughout the passage. Because of this the longstanding conclusion that the passage is a straightforward affirmation of universal sinfulness is problematic, but so also is the more recent suggestion that it simply affirms the incomparability of God. Neither does justice to the subversive ambiguity of the text, which seems to be deliberate. Far from a trivial acceptance of received wisdom, the text calls into question both the possibility of human righteousness before or compared to God, and its value in preventing sudden destruction. The disturbing conclusion is not that all are sinful, but that just as God’s own servants are found wanting, so human beings have no assurance of safety – all alike can perish without notice. I. A Subversive Vision Taken on its own, the question in 4:17 can be read in several different ways, and even the verses that follow only resolve some of that ambiguity. The most common reading, followed above, attributes ‫ מן‬a spatial or confrontational sense: “Can a mortal be righteous [‫ ]יצדק‬before God [‫”?]מאלוה‬99 This is a less common usage of the preposition, but it is not unprecedented, as Num 32:22, Ps 18:22[21] and Jer 51:5 each uses it in a similar way. The latter 97 PEAKE, Job 81; quoted by CLINES, Job, 1.132, who also refers to “the apparent banality” of the verse, though he goes on to suggest that it is less banal than it first appears. HARDING, Spirit, 113, also affirms that “while this revealed truth seems so obvious that its being stated is trite, it is central to Eliphaz’s thinking.” Similarly, HABEL, Job, 128; MATTINGLY, Pious Sufferer, 332–35; WHEDBEE, Comic Vision, 233. 98 E.g. FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 323, 351–52; WEISER, Hiob, 45, 49–50; CLINES, Job, 1.133–34. 99 Accepted by, e.g., FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 357; idem, Chapters 9 and 10, 257– 260; WEISER, Hiob, 45, 49–50; HESSE, Hiob, 51, 56; POPE, Job, 37; HABEL, Job 116; HARTLEY, Job, 110, 113; CLINES, Job, 1.132; LONGMAN, Job, 118–120; SEOW, Job, 388– 89; GINSBERG, Patient, 106 n. 3; CAESAR, New Thesis, 436; BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 296.

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reads: “Israel and Judah have not been forsaken by their God, YHWH of hosts, though their land is full of guilt before the Holy One of Israel [ ‫מקדושׁ‬ ‫]ישׂראל‬.” Such a sense is reflected in the OG of Job 4:17, which translates ‫מן‬ with ἐναντίον and ἀπό.100 Following this, some emphasize the legal sense of ‫ צדק‬and see this as implying two-way legal confrontation.101 Others instead downplay the legal for a moral sense: “Can a human being be righteous in relation to/in comparison with God?”102 All such interpretations raise a question that is variously answered in the Hebrew Bible in general. Indeed, though many commentators assume that this is “a traditional argument about the nature of the human condition,”103 claims that none can be righteous are rare in the Hebrew Bible, and even where they appear, they are almost certainly hyperbolic.104 We need look no further than the Psalms and Proverbs to see how unusual such an assumption is. For instance, Ps 53:4[3] (// Ps 14:3) offers perhaps the most pessimistic assessment of human nature anywhere in the Hebrew Bible: “All have fallen away, together they are corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”105 Paul quotes from this in Rom 3:12 to argue that “all have sinned” (Rom 3:23), yet the psalm itself goes on to contrast “those evildoers” with “my people”: “Do they not know, those evildoers, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call on God?” (Ps 53:5[4] // 14:4). The implication is that the whole world is against the psalmist and his people, not that human righteousness is impossible.106 Such a contrast between the righteous and the wicked is in fact far more common than universal condemnation.107 “For YHWH knows the way of the 100

BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 296. Most of the paraphrases of this verse later in Job avoid its use of ‫מן‬. Job uses ‫ עם‬in 9:2, and is followed by Bildad in 25:4; Eliphaz omits the reference to God altogether in 15:14, but Elihu does respond using ‫( מן‬32:2; 33:12; 35:2). 101 FOHRER, Hiob, 128, translates the verse: “Sind wohl die Menschen gegenüber Gott im Recht, oder ist ein Mann gegenüber sein Schöpfer rein?” Similarly HORST, Hiob, 58, 74–76. 102 TERRIEN, Job, 439–440, followed by NEWSOM, Contest, 140; Job, 378; BALENTINE, Job, 110–12; NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 15. 103 HABEL, Job, 128. He continues: “The substance of the mysterious revelation received by Eliphaz is not an announcement of novel divine designs for those who are suffering, but a traditional argument about the nature of human suffering…. Eliphaz’s message is simply that all humans inherit the ills of their creaturehood.” 104 CLINES, Job, 1.132; CAESAR, New Thesis, 438–39, also note the unconventionality of this low view of humanity within the larger Hebrew Bible. 105 Cf. also Ps 39:12[11]; 65:4; 130:3–4; Eccl 7:20; 9:1-11. There are also admissions of guilt that are not explicitly universalized, e.g. Ps 32:1–7; 38:5, 19 [4, 18]; 69:6. 106 This is even clearer in the version in Ps 14, which claims that “they shall be in great dread [‫]פחדו פחד‬, for God is with the company of the righteous” (14:5). 107 E.g. Ps 1; 5; 7; 11; 18:26–28[25–27]; 32:10–11; 34; 36; 37; 68:3–4[2–3]; 92:10– 15[9–14]; 107:42–43; 112; 119:1–8; 125; 140; 141; Prov 2:20–22; 3:33–35; 10:1–32; 11:5–11; 12:12–13, 21; 13:6, 21–22; 14:32; 15:6; 29:7. There are also straightforward affirmations of blamelessness, e.g. Ps 18:21–25[20–24]; 26:1–12. NEWSOM, Job, 378,

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righteous [‫]צדיקים‬, but the way of the wicked will perish [‫( ”]אבד‬Ps 1:6). “The curse of YHWH is on the house of the wicked, but the dwelling of the righteous he blesses” (Prov 3:33). It need not be assumed that these are naively ignorant of the complexity of human life, that “the righteous” were thought to be without sin, or that they never suffer.108 Nevertheless, there was a widespread assumption that human beings can be righteous, and those who are can be clearly distinguished from those wicked people who are not. In that light, it would hardly have been self-evident that a mortal cannot be righteous before or in relation to God. Such a conclusion may not have been unprecedented, but it would certainly have been controversial, as it is throughout the book of Job itself, as we will see.109 Beuken attempts to avoid this by suggesting that ‫ צדק‬and ‫ טהר‬in 4:17 are intended to represent the two major aspects of humanity’s relation to God, and therefore that “V. 17 does not allude to sin, it simply observes that an infinite distance exists in the order of the cosmos between creatures and God.”110 But this conclusion that only the relation is important, and not righteousness and purity themselves as the markers of that relation, depends on a distinction the text cannot support.111 That God is described as humanity’s “maker” (4:17b), and that human beings dwell in the dust and clay (4:19) support a creational, ontological distinction, but Beuken’s emphasis on “infinite distance” would better describe the heaven and earth dualism seen elsewhere in the book than it does this passage.112 The vision, by contrast, does emphasizes the temple entrance liturgies (Ps 15, 24), though she takes this as a reason to deny that the point of Job 4:17 can be that none is righteous before God, all this proves is that such a claim would be provocative. 108 For instance, there are admissions that the righteous do not always prosper, while the wicked do not always perish (e.g. Ps 37:7, 16; 88; Prov 19:1). Indeed, the whole lament genre presupposes just such a reversal of expectations. That there is a distinction between the righteous and the wicked, however, was only very rarely questioned (e.g. Eccl 9:1–3), even if its practical implications were not always clear. 109 Thus, BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 297, is correct that “the question is not rhetorical, but has the potential, rather, to introduce something new.” The prominence of this dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked within the Hebrew Bible and in the speeches of Job’s friends, will be discussed further below, in Chapter Four, Section B. 110 BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 299, cf. 298, where he claims that 17:9 uses the terms in this way. Cf. also FOHRER, Hiob, 144–46; PINKER, Job 4,18, 500–519. 111 Cf. SMITH, Vision, 462–63, rejecting a similar claim by ANDERSEN, Job, 113–16. 112 The most prominent reflections of a dualistic separation between heaven and earth (or the presence of God and the human world) are seen in the prologue (1:6–7, 12; 2:1–2, 7) and in the speeches of the friends (e.g. 11:7–8; 22:12–14; 25:2–6) and Elihu (e.g. 35:5– 6; 37:21–24). Job may also affirm this (e.g. 23:3–9), but he most often describes God not as too distant but rather as inescapable (e.g. 3:23; 7:17–21; 9:11–20; 13:25–27; 16:9–14; 19:6–12; 30:20–22). KELLENBERGER, Doppelrolle, 228–29, notes that “Während die Psalmen Gottes Ferne (sein Schweigen, Verbergen des Antlitzes usw.) beklagen, klagt Ijob umgekehrt über Gottes bedrängende und zerstörerische Nähe.” It is not a perfect contrast,

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not even mention “heaven,” nor use any other imagery of distance. Despite Beuken’s claims, therefore, the contrast between human and divine righteousness and purity implies a moral rather than a spatial axis to the divinehuman relation. What, then, of the comparative reading of the verse? For example, the KJV translates it, “Shall mortal man be more just than God [‫ ?]מאלוה‬shall a man be more pure than his maker [‫ ”?]מעשׂהו‬Grammatically, this is no doubt the most natural reading of ‫ מן‬in such a context,113 but most dismiss this as too trivial to be the point. As Beuken puts it, if the question were such that anyone “can easily respond ‘of course not!’… the question thus obviates further discussion by blocking the dispute between Job and his friends in advance, especially if we are dealing with some form of divine inspiration.”114 Whitekettle retorts that rhetorical questions are meant to be self-evidently answerable, so 4:17 need not be intended “as a statement/refutation of an actual belief but as a rhetorical ploy that makes use of hyperbole or overstatement.”115 Precisely because human beings are “obviously” not more righteous than God, the “hyperbolic” question establishes a commonly accepted basis on which the still lower standing of humanity can be argued in 4:18–21.116 If intended, such a hyperbolic reading would imply a different sequence of thought to the passage than is normally assumed. That is, rather than serving to answer the question in 4:17, the lowliness of humanity in 4:18–21 would itself be the point, while 4:17 is merely the means of introducing it.117

as he admits that Ps 39:14[13] reflects a similar conception as that attributed to Job (229 n. 20), but complaints of God’s overwhelming presence are indeed much more prominent in Job’s speeches than elsewhere. 113 Also accepted by the NKJV, NIV; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 184, 194–95; J. GRAY, Job, 150; and recently defended by WHITEKETTLE, Question, 445–48. This is certainly the sense intended in the other occurrences of ‫ מן‬+ ‫ צדק‬in the Hebrew Bible, in Gen 38:26 and Ezek 16:52, and it may be intended in Job 32:2 and 35:2 as well. Even those who reject it in Job 4:17 generally admit that this would normally be the expected meaning, e.g. FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 257; POPE, Job, 37; HABEL, Job, 116; CLINES, Job, 1.132. 114 BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 296. 115 WHITEKETTLE, Question, 446. 116 WHITEKETTLE, Question, 445–48. 117 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 195, 196 n. 3, suggests that even a comparative reading of the question is still less easily answered than many assume. After all, the prologue has just described Job as “blameless and upright” (1:1, 8; 2:3), while YHWH himself admits to destroying him “for no reason” or “for nothing” (‫ ;חנם‬2:3). On the surface the question is an offer of common ground, to which anyone might respond “of course not,” but within the context of the whole book the question remains open (HARDING, Spirit, 163–65; cf. also CLINES, Job, 1.133). Similarly, while it may seem “obvious” that a mortal cannot possibly be more righteous than God, to Job it is no longer obvious at all, for he will go on to argue that he is innocent while God is guilty, as we will see in Job 9 especially.

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Ultimately, however, the text can be read either way, and the ambiguity should not be too quickly resolved. In 4:17, a question is asked, not answered, and the following verses follow suit by asking further questions. Surprisingly, none of these directly address the issues of righteousness and purity, instead speaking of divine mistrust, human frailty, and finally destruction. The a maiore ad minus argument introduced in 4:18–19 either asks or asserts (‫ )הן‬that if God does not even trust “his servants,” and “his messengers” (or “angels”; ‫)מלאכיו‬, how much less human beings?118 There are several difficulties here, but the most important thing to recognize is the universality of the claim. God’s mistrust is not directed against some subset of fallen angels, but against his servants and messengers generally, while the following application to humanity refers not only to the wicked, but to all “those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust” (4:19).119 The force of this comparison is not fully clear. As Weiss notes, the parallel between divine mistrust and human frailty is left unexplained.120 Is the point that since human beings are material, they are even less capable of avoiding sin,121 or that because they are material, God takes even less heed of their righteousness or purity?122 Neither is explicit, which leaves open whether human lowliness is the cause or the result of the divine mistrust.123 At the same time, this shift in focus to humanity’s lowly nature can be taken to imply that sin is not in view at all, only the ontological contrast between creation and creator. For instance, Beuken notes that the denial that God “trusts” (‫ ;אמן‬Hiph) his servants need not imply any ethical failing on their part.124 ‫ אמן‬occurs nine times in Job, most of which are negated as here, and none presupposes sinful behavior.125 He concludes: “In each instance, the verb relates to the fact that one cannot rely on others on account of their physical nature or relational involvement.”126 Similarly, while the hapax in 4:18b, ‫תהלה‬, has been understood in various ways, the two most common and 118 ‫ הן‬is used to introduce a statement 32 times in Job, and serves a variety of purposes in that position. It always lends emphasis, but sometimes it is merely exclamatory, and other times marks a conditional sentence (COTTER, Job 4–5, 191–92). With SEOW, Job, 380. 404, I have followed the latter, which is also how the LXX takes it (εἰ), due to the generally open-ended nature of 4:17–21. An exclamatory reading is also possible, however, especially if the vision is attribute to Job. 119 On the textual difficulties in 4:19–21, cf. WEISS, Bible from Within, 164–68. 120 WEISS, Bible from Within, 164–66; NEWSOM, Job, 378. 121 So DILLMANN, Hiob, 39; CLINES, Job, 1.134. 122 So BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 300–304. 123 This is all the more evident if, as several argue, 4:19c should actually be read “they are crushed before their maker.” See below on this possibility. 124 BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 301. 125 Cf. 9:16; 12:20; 15:15, 22, 31; 24:22; 29:24; 39:12, 24. 126 BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 301, many of these refer to not trusting things rather than people (e.g. 15:22, 31; 24:22), but Beuken’s point stands: sin is not implied by the expression.

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plausible are “error” or possibly “folly.”127 Beuken is correct that both refer more properly to an absence of wisdom than to sinful action, and therefore the ambiguous verb ‫ שׂים‬probably should not be given the forensic connotations of “charge” here.128 While the verse is clear that God does not trust his subordinates, why is left unsaid. If neither ‫ אמן‬nor ‫ תהלה‬implies sin, are God’s servants truly unreliable, or does God simply refuse to trust them? Therefore Beuken may well be correct that “The argument does not mean that God even encounters a lack of fidelity and wisdom among his ‘servants/messengers,’ but that the said moral characteristics do not count for him, have no significance with respect to his relationship with them.”129 But his conclusion is questionable: “It is not the corruption of all things that is being focused on here but rather the inconsequentiality thereof when compared to God.”130 The insignificance of these figures simply is not mentioned, nor is their trustworthiness or reliability compared to God’s; rather God is said to actively deny those attributes in his own servants. This is a more troubling claim than merely that God is incomparable, and implies a measure of opposition. If Beuken is correct that sin is not in view, then the text offers no basis for that opposition. It is left unsaid why God mistrusts. No matter which of these is inferred, it should not be overlooked that 4:18 represents an even more startling claim than 4:17 in the context of the wider Hebrew Bible. As Pinker emphasizes, “angels” (‫ )מלאכים‬are nowhere else critiqued.131 The scattered references to an “evil spirit” or a “spirit of falsehood” are all said to have been sent by YHWH himself, with his authorization – none are condemned or attributed any independent will to act against God’s intentions.132 Even the role of the Satan in Job’s prologue offers only an uncertain parallel, given that he can apparently do nothing without YHWH’s 127 The range of solutions proposed to explain ‫ תהלה‬is legion, and there is no indisputable evidence in favor of any of them. PINKER, Job 4,18, 505–9, discusses eight possibilities, including his own (511–19). The most common and least problematic remains “error” (e.g. POPE, Job, 35, 37). 128 BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 301. 129 BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 302. 130 BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 302. 131 PINKER, Job 4,18, 509–511; cf. CLINES, Job, 1.136. 132 Thus, POPE, Job, 37, 231–32, looks quite far afield for parallels, settling on 2 Pet 2:4 (a late text even by New Testament standards) and an unclear reference in the Ugaritic texts to some unnamed shameful act by the slave-girls at a divine banquet. CLINES, Job, 1.136, appeals more plausibly to Gen 6:1–4, but its relevance to Job 4 is also dubious. There are of course examples of God condemning other deities (e.g. Ps 82), but the condemned gods are not depicted as servants of YHWH. The only potential example is Zech 3:1–2, where the Satan is rebuked by the angel of YHWH. This is another late text, and does not describe the Satan as a servant or angel. In Num 22:22 the angel of YHWH himself stands before Balaam as “an accuser” (‫)שׂטן‬, with the threat to destroy him, but here again he is carrying out God’s own judgment, not acting against God.

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authorization.133 Pinker concludes that 4:18 simply cannot mean that God condemns his own angels, as “There is no reason for the author of the Book of Job to break with this tradition and introduce a notion undermining the theological foundation of the Tanach.”134 But given the kind of introduction it received in 4:12–16, we can hardly assume that this text means to reflect an “orthodox” viewpoint. Pinker attempts to avoid any moral contrast between God and his intermediaries by claiming that 4:18, like 25:5, refers to “inanimate” heavenly bodies.135 This is an anachronistic distinction, as the book of Job clearly depicts the sun, moon and stars themselves as divine beings, whether as servants of God (e.g. 38:7), or potential objects of worship (31:26–28).136 Job’s cosmos is much livelier than Pinker allows, so even if 4:18 has heavenly bodies in view, these are on no account “inanimate.” But in fact 4:18 does not refer to the “moon” and “stars” as 25:5 does, but to “his servants” and “his messengers.” That this refers to divine or angelic beings is implied by the contrast with physical habitations of human beings in 4:19–21, and is confirmed by the ancient versions, all of which translate 4:18b with “angels.”137 If this is 133

SMITH, Vision, 463, suggests that Job 4:18 may allude to the Satan and that this offers an explanation for evil. The Satan’s role in the prologue (and the book as a whole) is of course widely disputed. OBLATH, Job’s Advocate, 189–201, denies that the Satan is an evil figure at all, claiming that he simply carries out YHWH’s intent as ordered. SPIECKERMANN, Satanisierung, 431–444, also argues that God and the Satan are closely identified, not only in the prologue but throughout the book. By contrast, DAY, Adversary, 75–84, and MAGDALENE, Scales, 95–126, argue that the Satan’s words and actions in the prologue are not just a challenge to human righteousness, but to YHWH’s authority itself. 134 PINKER, Job 4,18, 518. He further claims that this cannot be the point because it “leads to the doctrine of universal sinfulness, which contradicts the doctrine of retribution in Eliphaz’s first speech” (509). 135 PINKER, Job 4,18, 513, 518. 136 Numerous aspects of creation are more or less explicitly personified in Job, including the sun and moon (31:26–28), the stars (38:7, cf. 12 (Kethib), 9:7), the heavens (besides 15:15; also 20:27; 26:11; cf. 26:13; 9:8), the earth (12:8; 16:18; 20:27), the sea (7:12; 9:8; 26:12; 28:14; 38:8; probably 3:8), the whirlwind (37:9), and lightning (38:35), as well as “darkness” (3:5; 15:30; 20:26; cf. 10:21–22; 24:17; 38:17), Sheol (24:19; 26:6), Abaddon (26:6; 28:22) and Death (18:13; 28:22). In addition to personifications, there are also explicit references to “the sons of God” (1:6; 2:1; 38:7), the Satan (1:6–12; 2:1–7), God’s “troops” (19:12; 25:3; cf. 6:4; 16:13), “the sons of Resheph” (5:7), “the firstborn of death” (18:13), “the king of terrors” (18:14; cf. 6:4; 18:11; 24:17; 27:20); as well as various divine adversaries such as Rahab (9:13; 26:12), Tannin (7:12), Leviathan (3:8; 40:25– 41:26[41:1–34]) and probably Behemoth (40:15–24), alongside numerous more debatable examples. Presumably not all of these are meant to describe actual divine figures, but regardless the impression is of a cosmos teeming with activity. 137 The Targum maintains ‫מלאכים‬, the LXX translates ἄγγελοι, the Vulgate angelī. The paraphrase in 15:15 replaces “servants” with “holy ones” and “messengers” with “heavens,” confirming that even there God’s heavenly servants are still in view.

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so, however, there is no reason to accept Pinker’s attempt to read ‫ תהלה‬as “weakness” and a generic reference to the imperfection of creation.138 Even he cannot dispute the sense of mistrust in 4:18a, and while he is right to highlight the reference to God as creator in 4:17b, this cannot be used to deny that the “servants” whom God mistrusts are thought of as personal beings – angels or deities of some sort. The suggestion that God mistrusts his own servants remains a startling claim, if not an outright reversal of the usual assumptions concerning their holiness.139 That being the case, the greater-to-the-lesser argument begun in 4:18 implies that the lowliness of humanity in 4:19–21 should be understood in similar terms, and not primarily in a spatial or ontological contrast. That is, the “how much less” (‫ )אף‬that links 4:19 to 4:18 implies that God also mistrusts human beings and imputes error to them.140 Yet the fact that this is not made explicit is important. While the comparison between 4:18 and 4:19 implies that humankind is deemed deficient by God, the emphasis of the text is not on human failings, but instead – and startlingly – on human destruction. This is where both the traditional emphasis on universal sin and Beuken’s better-nuanced emphasis on ontological difference go astray, as both underappreciate the violence of this portrayal. The conclusion in 4:19c–21 does not simply describe human “suffering,”141 or “weakness”;142 it depicts the sudden and violent death to which human beings are prone. In that light, the fact that this fate is not restricted to sinners, but applied to “those who dwell in houses of clay,” is perhaps the vision’s most radical claim of all, going well beyond any mere dichotomy between the creator and his creatures.

138 Contra PINKER, Job 4,18, 513–15. His proposal requires a metathesis (and possibly an ‫א‬/‫ ה‬confusion) to derive ‫ תלהה‬from the rare root ‫להה‬, which he takes to means “to languish, faint” by analogy to ‫( תלאה‬514). He appeals to the Aramaic ‫ הלי‬and ‫( להא‬both meaning “to be tired”) as parallels, since the Hebrew evidence for ‫ להה‬is scanty, appearing only in Gen 47:13, as a Hitpalp participle in Prov 26:18, and in Sir 32:14, 15 (MSS B and F). The use in Prov 26:18 certainly does not indicate weakness, but perhaps a “maniac” or “madman,” from which is derived the more common reading in Job 4:18, “folly.” 139 Indeed, it seems more likely that this is meant to subvert the assumption that God’s “servants” are especially holy than that it alludes to some obscure tradition of angelic sin. If so, the implications remain ambiguous: Is it implied that God is so righteous that even those most righteous are untrustworthy by comparison, or is it that God refuses to acknowledge the righteousness even of those most holy among his creations? 140 The overall structure of the argument suggests a greater-to-the-lesser argument, though this would normally be introduced by ‫אף כי‬, so the ‫ כי‬must be inferred. SEOW, Job, 406, therefore prefers to read ‫ אף‬simply as “surely.” The meaning of the passage is not greatly affected by the difference. 141 Contra DILLMANN, Hiob, 33; CLINES, Job, 1.128. 142 Contra BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 304; cf. PINKER, Job 4,18, 518–19.

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II. Indiscriminate Destruction in 4:19–21 That 4:19–21 refers to human beings in general is not to be doubted. Even if “those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust” refers only to human dwellings, it cannot be taken to refer only to one class of people – the poor as opposed to the rich who live in fine houses. The contrast is instead with God’s own servants and messengers, implying a reference to mortals in general. The same is implied by the terms “a mortal” (‫ )אנושׁ‬and “a man” (‫ )גבר‬in 4:17, which establish the universal stakes in view.143 A generic reference is all the more probable if – as seems likely – 4:19 refers to human bodies as “houses of clay” (cf. Wis 9:15), and not merely to human habitations.144 That is not to say, of course, that the text requires that all humans meet the same fate. As already noted, it is reasonable to translate the verbs here with a modal sense,145 but the “potential” destruction described in 4:19–21 remains a threat to every human being. Whether the point is that all “those who dwell in houses of clay” are suddenly destroyed, or only that any of them can be, the implication is the same: No one is safe. This is no minor point, as the fate described in 4:19–21 is extreme. With five consecutive images, it describes human life as violent and short. First, they are “crushed,” probably “before a moth” or “like a moth.”146 The image has often troubled commentators, who dismiss the temporal sense as “rather excessive hyperbole,”147 but regardless human destruction is linked to something slight, and the sense of easy or quick destruction is not to be denied. “Crushed” (‫ )דכא‬can be used of crushing or beating something to pieces. It ‫ גבר‬is typically used of males (HALOT, 1.175, translates “the young man; strong man”; the related verb, which is used in 21:7, means “be superior” [Qal] or “be strong” [Hiph]). It is a favorite term to describe Job, often in the context of his troubled relation to God (cf. 3:3, 23; 10:5; 14:10, 14; 16:21). Eliphaz (15:25; 22:2), Elihu (33:17, 29; 34:7, 9, 34; 36:9) and YHWH (38:3; 40:7) all use it in passages that may have Job in view. The use in 4:17, therefore, may imply more than just a generalized allusion to humanity as a whole, but also a specific allusion to Job himself as a member of that class. 144 This is almost universally accepted, e.g. DHORME, Job, 53–54; FOHRER, Hiob, 131; HESSE, Hiob, 56; HORST, Hiob, 76–77; HARTLEY, Job, 114; CLINES, Job, 1.134–35; NEWSOM, Job, 378; SEOW, Job 406. 145 So DILLMANN, Hiob, 39; CLINES, Verb Modality, 749–751; HABEL, Job, 116. 146 For the options, see RIMBACH, Crushed, 244–46. With Rimbach and against the MT punctuation, I take 4:19c to be the beginning of a new colon with 4:20, rather than as the end of one with 4:19a–b, as it seems to introduce a new thought (though he emends the text to two bi-cola, which is unnecessary); similarly, TUR-SINAI, Job, 84, 85–86; COTTER, Job 4–5, 187, 191. There is no great difference in meaning. Either way, 4:19c–21 depicts the fate of those described in 4:19a–b. 147 CLINES, Job, 1.135. DILLMANN, Hiob (3rd ed.), 43, also objects that “es wäre eine unnöthige und unwahre Uebertreibung des Thatbestandes [sic.],” but he backs off in the 4th ed., asking merely “wozu solche unwahre Hyperbel?” (39). 143

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can refer to the broken-hearted or contrite (Ps 34:19[18]; Isa 57:15; Jer 44:10), but in Job, it is used of God’s blows,148 or of human oppression.149 Elsewhere it is also used of enemy attacks (Ps 143:3; Lam 3:34), and crushed testicles (Deut 23:2). It is a violent term to apply to human beings. According to the MT, the cause of this destruction is unspecified, but some suggest emending the text to resolve the ambiguity. For instance, Seow translates 4:19 as a whole: “Surely, those who dwell in houses of clay, Whose foundation is from dirt, May be crushed before the maker.”150 This requires significant repointing of 4:19c, which does not seem to me warranted,151 but it is possible, and would suggest an even more subversive text than the MT already implies. That human beings – in general! – are not just mistrusted but actively destroyed by their maker would be very close indeed to Job’s own complaints, in 9:22 and elsewhere. Ultimately, the emendation remains speculative and uncertain, but what is nonetheless clear is that 4:19 affirms that human beings can be violently crushed, whether this is presented as a direct divine attack or merely sudden. The same is also true of verb ‫ כתת‬in 4:20a, which is used elsewhere of shattering a clay pot (Isa 30:14) and similarly destructive acts.152 The term’s violence is further emphasized by the temporal marker ‫מבקר לערב‬, “from morning to evening,” whether this indicates suddenness (in a single day) or duration (all day long). Most favor the first, noting the close parallel in Isa 38:12–13, which uses very similar imagery to Job 4:19–21:153 My dwelling is pulled up [‫ ]נסע‬and removed from me like a shepherd’s tent; I have rolled up my life like a weaver; he cuts me off from the loom; from day until night [‫ ]מיום עד־לילה‬you make an end of me.

12

148

Job 6:9; 19:2; 34:25; cf. similarly Ps 72:4; 89:11[10]; 90:3; 94:5; Isa 53:5, 10. Job 5:4; 22:9; cf. Prov 22:22; Isa 3:15. 150 SEOW, Job, 381, cf. 406–7. 151 Instead of the MT 3rd Pl. Piel with 3rd Pl. suffix, assumed to have an impersonal subject (“they crush them”), ‫ ידכאום‬is repointed as a Pual with enclitic ‫( מ‬or the ‫ מ‬is transferred to the beginning of the following preposition ‫)לפני‬, “they are crushed”; cf. SEOW, Job, 406, similarly HERZ, Difficult Passages, 160; TUR-SINAI, Job, 86; MICHEL, Ugaritic Texts, 155, 265–66; RIMBACH, Crushed, 244–46; similarly, BLOMMERDE, Grammar, 41). ‫ עָשׁ‬in the MT is then repointed or emended to (‫שׂ)ה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫ע‬, “the maker,” or ‫שׂם‬ ָ ֹ ‫( ע‬assuming that ‫מ‬ was lost to haplography with the following word, ‫)מבקר‬, “their maker.” CLINES, Job, 1.113, discusses the options and is also skeptical. 152 The term does not appear otherwise in Job, but elsewhere it is most often used of smashing something into small pieces (Deut 9:21; 2 Kgs 18:4; 2 Chr 15:6; 34:7; Isa 24:12;; Mic 1:7) or of being routed in battle (Num 14:45; Deut 1:44; Jer 46:5; cf. Ps 89:24[23]). It is also used of beating metal flat (Isa 2:4 // Mic 4:3; Joel 4:10[3:10]), of crushed testicles (Lev 22:24) and of destroying the land (Zech 11:6). 153 E.g. DILLMANN, Hiob, 43; COLEMAN, Job, 14; HORST, Hiob, 77; FOHRER, Hiob, 146; POPE, Job, 38. 149

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I lay down until morning; like a lion he breaks [‫ ]שׁבר‬all my bones [‫;]עצמותי‬ from day until night [‫ ]מיום עד־לילה‬you make an end of me.154 13

This is part of a psalm attributed to Hezekiah, and unfortunately both its provenance and meaning are difficult to determine.155 Here as well the expression could indicate suddenness or duration.156 But whereas in Isaiah the image is part of a complaint by an individual sufferer, in Job 4 it is applied to human beings in general. It is not part of a cry for help, but simply a description of human nature. That this does not refer merely to “temporary” suffering is then confirmed by 4:20b, which affirms that mortals are not merely crushed and destroyed but “perish forever” (‫)לנצח אבד‬. ‫ אבד‬very commonly describes premature death, both within Job and outside of it. It is the fate commonly assigned to the wicked,157 and that from which sufferers hope to be rescued.158 This is no neutral term for passing away; it is the well-deserved destruction of the wicked and an unmitigated disaster when it befalls the innocent. That this is said to occur ‫מבלי משׂים‬, “without any regarding it” or “without notice,” further sharpens the subversive edge to the text.159 It has been understood to imply that death comes unexpectedly,160 that none remembers the dead,161 or that none cares – perhaps not even God.162 Andersen came to the latter conclusion: “Eliphaz’s well-meant exaltation of God has led to a horrible result. If 154

NJPS reads this instead “Only from daybreak to nightfall / Was I kept whole.” The verb ‫ שׁלם‬could be read either way, but the context better fits a sense of ending (i.e. death) than completion (i.e. restoration). 155 It is not paralleled in 2 Kgs 20 or 2 Chr 32; cf. O. KAISER, Isaiah 13–39, 397–407, esp. 403–4. 156 Though Job commentators generally assume a sense of suddenness (e.g. DILLMANN, Hiob, 43), O. KAISER, Isaiah 13–39, 405, and BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah 1–39, 479, interpret it instead as an description of the continual nature of the psalmist’s suffering “all day long.” 157 E.g. Job 4:7–11; 8:13; 11:20; 18:17; 20:7; cf. Ps 1:6; 5:7[6]; 9:4–7[3–6]; 37:20; 68:3[2]; 73:27; 83:18[17] (which describes it as shameful); 92:10[9]. 158 E.g. Ps 31:12–13[11–12]; Ps 41:6[5]. With other language as well, many complaint psalms speak as though already dead (e.g. Ps 9:14[13]; 22:16[15]; 39:14[13]; 44:20–26; 69:15–16[14–15]; 79:2–3, 10; 88:4–9, 16–19[3–8, 15–18]; 143:3; Lam 3:6; Jon 2:3–4). Other psalms thank God that the speaker did not perish (e.g. Ps 119:92, cf. 30:4; 56:14; 86:13; 116:8; cf. further BROYLES, Faith, 84–90; JOHNSON, Shades, 86–97). 159 The expression appears to be elliptical, with commentators generally assuming an implicit ‫ ;לב‬e.g. TUR-SINAI, Job, 87; FOHRER, Hiob, 131; CLINES, Job, 1.113; J. GRAY, Job, 156; LONGMAN, Job, 112; SEOW, Job, 407–8. A few shift the ‫ מ‬from the beginning of ‫ משׂים‬to the end of ‫ מבלי‬and take as an enclitic: ‫מבלים שׂים‬, perhaps “without a name” (assuming a plene spelling of ‫שׁם‬ ֵ ; POPE, Job, 38; HABEL, Job, 116). This emendation is unnecessary, and produces a sense not greatly different from that often attributed to the MT itself: that none remember the dead. 160 GORDIS, Job, 51; HARTLEY, Job, 115; CLINES, Job, 1.135. 161 FOHRER, Hiob, 131, 146; LONGMAN, Job, 121. 162 DRIVER AND GRAY, Job, 48; TERRIEN, Job, 941; ANDERSEN, Job, 115.

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he cannot be bothered with angels, how much less would he care about men.”163 Clines also admits that “Eliphaz has not covered himself very well against that possible interpretation of his words,”164 but he finds it more likely that the point is that the victims of disaster do not themselves foresee it.165 The sense can again be left ambiguous, as any or all of these are possible in context. Both suddenness and ignorance are also emphasized in 4:21, with the image of the collapsing tent,166 and the conclusion that “they die [‫]מות‬, and not in wisdom.” It is unclear whether their lack of wisdom is cause or result of their death, but the important thing to recognize is that this is not invoked to limit who can die in such a way, but rather to further specify the manner in which human beings die.167 That is, the point is not that only those who lack wisdom are destroyed, but that human beings in general can die suddenly and without wisdom.168 Moreover, the finality of death is not to be overlooked here. This is not a claim that even the righteous can suffer misfortune; it is a forthright admission that any human being can die, truly and finally. Taken as a whole, therefore, 4:19–21 is an extended meditation on the possibility of swift and final death, which can fall at any time, on anyone. As noted at the outset, it remains debated whether all of this constitutes the conclusion of the vision proper, or only the visionary’s own interpretation of 4:17.169 I would suggest that a more likely transition point from the words of the “voice” to the interpretation of the visionary is instead after 4:19b.170 Despite the current verse break, this is the point where the interrogative form 163

ANDERSEN, Job, 115 n. 4, quoted by CLINES, Job, 1.135; cf. TERRIEN, Job, 941. CLINES, Job, 1.135. 165 CLINES, Job, 1.135–36. 166 Whether 4:21a is taken to refer to a snapped tent cord (e.g. HORST, Hiob, 77; GORDIS, Job, 51; POPE, Job, 38–39; HABEL, Job, 116–17; HARTLEY, Job, 110; CLINES, Job, 1.114; LONGMAN, Job, 121), or a pulled up tent peg (e.g. FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 353–54; HESSE, Hiob, 57), the sense is the same: one quick movement and the whole collapses. The verb ‫ נסע‬is the same one used in the similar image in Isa 38:12. Alternatively, TUR-SINAI, Job, 86–88, proposes “Is not their remnant rooted out,” which is possible (similarly, SEOW, Job, 408). J. GRAY, Job, 151, transfers 4:21a to pair with 5:5a and translates it “Is not their abundance plucked from them.” This is doubtful. 167 ‫ לא בחכמה‬has been interpreted a number of ways: “without knowing why” (FOHRER, Hiob, 146; HESSE, Hiob, 51; HARTLEY, Job, 115), “without purpose” (cf. HORST, Hiob, 77–78), or “without ever gaining wisdom” (CLINES, Job, 1.136–37). For discussion of the options, cf. BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 303–4; J. GRAY, Job, 157. 168 Contra CLINES, Job, 1.136–37. 169 Generally the two options are thought to be that the message is confined to 4:17 (e.g. WEISER, Hiob, 45, 49–50; CLINES, Job, 1.107, 133–34; SEOW, Job, 381; BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 295–96, who suggests that the line between revelation and interpretation is intentionally blurred), or that it encompasses the whole of 4:17–21 (e.g. POPE, Job, 35; FOHRER, Hiob, 128; HABEL, Job, 113; J. GRAY, Job, 150; DHORME, Job, 52–57, includes 4:17– 20+21b+5:2). 170 TUR-SINAI, Job, 84, 88, seems to suggest this, though he does not make it clear. 164

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is replaced by direct affirmations, and the point where the focus on human destruction begins. Further, both of the paraphrases of the vision in 15:14–16 and 25:4–6 break off at 4:19b, leaving out the account of indiscriminate destruction that follows. Tur-Sinai also notes that 4:17–18 refers to realities that a human being cannot claim to know from normal experience (God’s stance towards human righteousness and the status of his servants and messengers), but the account in 4:19c–21 depends only on “facts known to human experience.”171 All of this opens up the possibility that the concluding account of inescapable violence could represent the visionary’s own interpretation of the vision’s meaning, rather than the conclusion of the vision itself. Whether this is the vision’s own message or the visionary’s interpretation, however, 4:19c–21 presents a much more startling and subversive conclusion to the account than is generally acknowledged, and cannot help reflecting back upon 4:17–19b. For if 4:17 opens with a question concerning the possibility of human righteousness and purity, and 4:18–19b ties this to divine mistrust and human lowliness, 4:19c–21 draws a radical conclusion from it: Any human being can die suddenly and without warning. The fact that “righteousness” and “purity” go unmentioned in that conclusion implies that they have no bearing on human fate, leaving the reason for this sudden human destruction unexplained, and offering no means of avoiding it. The several individual questions that the vision asks, therefore, combine to raise one major question: If any can perish in this way, is there any reliable link between human behavior and human fate? The vision, quite simply, does not answer that question, but it raises it in a forceful way. How then does the whole passage look when set in the context of the visionary account in 4:12–16? If, as has been argued, the vision really does blend language of genuine revelation with imagery of divine deception and judgment, such an ambiguous and potentially subversive message is fully in keeping with that introduction. Traditions of a “spirit of falsehood” deliberately sent to confuse and condemn the recipient imply a unilateral judgment that has already been decreed and can no longer be avoided, so it should not surprise that a challenge to human righteousness and a threat of overwhelming destruction are also at the center of 4:17–21. In both halves of the passage there are hints of divine judgment, yet their warrant is uncertain, and God’s own role ambiguous. The ambivalence and tension this creates should be respected, for only in their light can we make sense of the highly divergent reactions they inspire throughout the subsequent dialogues.

171

TUR-SINAI, Job, 86.

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Chapter 1: An Uncanny Vision

C. Conclusions C. Conclusions

Even amidst the great diversity of dreams and visions in the Hebrew Bible, the mysterious account in Job 4 is unusual. Blending language and imagery from a vast array of distinct and often conflicting traditions, its every verse takes language that elsewhere reflects genuine revelatory activity, and twists it into something novel and unsettling. It describes “a word to me,” but unlike the prophets who use this expression, this visionary hears only a stolen whisper. He experiences visions, but they bring him troubling thoughts and boneshaking terror. He encounters a spirit, but its anonymity recalls traditions of a spirit of falsehood, through whom God was known to deceive and condemn. These images of revelation and judgment are intertwined but left hanging, like a noose awaiting a victim. With such a prologue, the vision’s message is equally menacing. Though often read as a “traditional” affirmation of universal sin or divine supremacy, its emphasis on divine mistrust and human destruction challenges the very link between sin and suffering. The questions raised in 4:17 are given no clear answers, but rather deepened by the pessimistic conclusions in 4:18–21. If none is deemed righteous before or compared to God, the implication is not just that any can suffer, but that none is safe at all, perhaps even in the hand of God. If God mistrusts his own servants and allows mortals to “perish forever without notice,” what hope remains? Before such a God, the threat of swift and sure death stands over all human beings, even those most pious. Read on its own terms, this vision proves far more subversive than is generally acknowledged, but what purpose does its ambivalence serve? It is typically assumed to imply the poet’s condemnation of Eliphaz, in whose speech it appears, but as we now turn to the surrounding dialogues, we will see that such subversive imagery is unprecedented in the friends’ speeches, but characteristic of Job’s. Far from a “banal” affirmation that all have sinned so all can suffer, the vision reflects and justifies Job’s most earnest complaint: that God has become his enemy.

Chapter 2

“Have You Stood in the Council of God?” The Vision in the First Two Speech Cycles Chapter 2: The Vision in the First Two Speech Cycles Introduction

Those who have emphasized the ambiguous and potentially subversive character of the vision have virtually all assumed that it is Eliphaz’s experience that is being recounted. Its ambivalence has been taken as the poet’s means to subtly critique Eliphaz and his claims to knowledge. Its challenge to human righteousness has been assumed to reflect Eliphaz’s own viewpoint, and its hints of deception and judgment taken to anticipate his condemnation at the end of the book (42:7–9).1 The attraction of such a reading is obvious, but it runs aground when the vision’s language and imagery are compared to those of the surrounding dialogues. The problem is that the vision’s subversive language is anything but characteristic of Eliphaz. Nowhere else does he even hint at his own terrifying and confusing experiences, nor imply that God has condemned and misled him. On the contrary, he applies such imagery exclusively to Job and the wicked. Yet such dread-filled self-description is no anomaly within the book, for that is precisely how Job himself constantly speaks. All of the formal characteristics that set this vision apart from Eliphaz’s speeches find direct parallels in Job’s own mode of expression. Moreover, while every speaker in the dialogues quotes or alludes to the vision at least twice, Job is the only one to make constructive use of its imagery to describe human beings in general and his own experience in particular. Eliphaz only quotes from the vision once, in 15:14–16, and there he even seems to attribute these “words” to Job in 15:12–13, and contrasts them with his own view in 15:9–11 and 15:17–35. The other friends respond to the vision similarly, applying its imagery to Job or the wicked, rarely if ever to themselves or the entire human race. Both in style and outlook, the vision closely aligns with Job’s perspective, and it is treated as though it were Job’s throughout the subsequent dialogues, at least through the first two speech cycles. This chapter will offer a sustained comparison of the vision to the first part of Job’s dialogue with his friends. Because the treatment of the vision in later portions of the book is distinctly different, the third speech cycle and the Elihu speeches will be addressed in the next chapter, where we will consider 1

For a full discussion of these approaches, see the Introduction, Section A.II.

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their implications for the diachronic development of the book. Throughout the first two speech cycles, however, we will see that the vision’s own vocabulary and literary style on the one hand, and the subsequent allusions to it on the other, inexorably link it to Job, not Eliphaz. First, we will compare the overarching formal, lexical and stylistic characteristics of the vision with those found elsewhere in the dialogue. It will be seen that the vision’s use of tri-cola and more complex lines, extended firstperson discourse, frequent body imagery, and overall fearful and confused tone, all directly parallel Job’s vocabulary and style, and stand in clear contrast to the self-portrayal of the friends. On that basis, we will then turn to the direct quotations and allusions to the vision in the following dialogue, where Eliphaz and the other two friends consistently blend their allusions to the vision with expressions drawn from Job’s speeches. They apply the vision’s imagery almost exclusively to Job or the wicked, rarely if ever to themselves. They never attribute the vision to Eliphaz, but repeatedly imply that it is Job’s. By contrast, Job regularly describes himself in the very same ways that the visionary does, builds extensively on the vision’s conclusions, and even complains of terrifying visions. In short, the vision is not merely ambiguous and subversive; it plays a central role in Job’s own complaint, and much of the book attributes it to him, not Eliphaz, leaving its current placement in Job 4 highly problematic.

A. The Style of the Vision and the Dispute between Job and His Friends A. The Style of the Vision

Before addressing the direct allusions to the vision, we must first consider how its language is reflected in the book as a whole. For despite its present location in Eliphaz’s first speech, the vision strongly conflicts with the friends’ usual mode of expression. One of the few to recognize that the vision violates Eliphaz’s otherwise consistent style is Witte,2 but while he is correct that the vision’s language is out of place on Eliphaz’s lips, he overlooks that it is not unprecedented within the book – it is characteristic of Job’s speeches. I. Formal Characteristics of the Vision within the Dialogues Witte notes that the complex line in 4:16 and the tri-colon in 4:19 are rare in Eliphaz’s speeches, which otherwise consist almost entirely of bi-cola.3 Outside of 4:12–21, the only other tri-colon in this speech is the apparently cor2

WITTE, Leiden, 70–72; see further bibliography in Section A.III of the Introduction. WITTE, Leiden, 70–72, cf. NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, 24–25. COTTER, Job 4–5, 176, 185–86, also emphasizes that the complex line in 4:16 is unparalleled in chs. 4–5. 3

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rupt 5:5.4 Eliphaz’s third speech is also marked by consistent bi-cola throughout, as is most of his second, though tri-cola are found in 15:28–30.5 All told there are fewer than a dozen tri-cola or broken bi-cola among all of the friends’ speeches combined.6 What Witte misses, however, is that Job’s speeches are much less consistent in their poetic form, and include more than fifty such tri-cola and more complex lines, leaving the vision’s own poetic inconsistency much closer to Job’s style than Eliphaz’s.7 On a related point Witte notes that the vision begins with a ‫ ו‬in 4:12 (as does the bi-colon in 4:15) which is nowhere else used to begin a section in the friends’ speeches.8 He again takes this as an indication that the vision is secondary, but overlooks that this is also characteristic of Job. Not only does Job more commonly begin bi-cola with a ‫ ו‬than all other speakers in the book combined, but he is the only one to regularly begin new sections in this way, which he does at least five times and perhaps as many as eleven.9 Both of the formal characteristics that Witte finds to set the vision apart from Eliphaz’s style are distinctive of Job’s. 4

That 5:5 is corrupt is almost universally accepted; cf. CLINES, Job, 1.115–16, for the range of options. FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 324, 259, considers 5:5 “hopelessly corrupt,” suggesting that 5:5b may be secondary, or the whole may be a remnant of a former quatrain. COTTER, Job 4–5, 202 n. 4, calls it “surely the most difficult and most commented upon and reconstructed verse of chs. 4–5…. It is clear the MT is corrupt at this point.” Cotter opts to maintain the MT anyway, as he believes “the sense is clear enough,” but many others emend it to a bi-colon (e.g. DRIVER AND GRAY, Job, 51; FOHRER, Hiob, 132; HESSE, Hiob, 51; HORST, Hiob, 59. 61–61; WITTE, Leiden, 72 n. 49). NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, 18, 27–28, considers the whole of 5:3–5 redactional. 5 A number of scholars also emend 15:24–30 to recover original bi-cola (e.g. WITTE, Leiden, 76–77; NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, 34–35). This is debatable, but the text is problematic, esp. in 15:29c–31 (cf. CLINES, Job, 1.362; NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, 41–44; J. GRAY, Job, 244–45). 6 Such appear in Eliphaz’s speeches in 5:5; 15:28–30; in Bildad’s speeches in 8:6; 18:4; and in Zophar’s speeches in 11:6, 20; 20:23, 25–26. There are more of them in Elihu’s speeches than all three friends’ combined (32:6, 11, 12; 33:15, 23–24, 26–27; 34:10, 19– 20, 29, 33, 37; 36:7, 11, 16; 37:4, 12, 21, 23). There are only a few in the divine speeches (cf. 38:11, 41; 39:25; 40:15). 7 In Job’s speeches they appear in 3:4–6, 9, 26; 6:4, 10; 7:4, 11, 20–21; 9:24; 10:1, 3, 15, 17, 22; 12:3–4, 6; 13:27; 14:5, 7, 12–14, 19; 16:4, 8–10, 12–13; 19:12, 27, 29; 21:17, 33; 24:5, 12–16, 18, 20, 24; 29:25; 30:12, 15; 31:7, 34–35; 42:3 (and 28:3–4). WITTE, Leiden, 71–72, denies that Job’s poetry is more broken than the friends’, but this depends on widespread adjustments to eliminate purportedly secondary additions across the book as a whole (cf. 231–38). NEWSOM, Contest, 130–31, recognizes that Job’s poetry is much more diverse and “broken” than the friends’. There is no reason to assume that this is all the result of secondary corruption, even if some of it may be. 8 WITTE, Leiden, 70. 9 Cf. 9:25; 12:7; 17:6; 30:1, 9; more debatable examples are 6:28; 16:8; 17:10; 19:25; 28:12, 20. Overall, Job begins 61 poetic lines with a ‫( ו‬including 4 in ch. 28). The friends begin 21 poetic lines with a ‫ו‬, but these typically appear at the end of a section or in lists,

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Even more significant is the extended first-person discourse in 4:12–16, which is seen in two first-person verbal forms (‫אכיר‬, ‫ )אשׁמע‬and seven firstperson suffixes (‫אלי‬, ‫אזני‬, ‫קראני‬, ‫עצמותי‬, ‫על־פני‬, ‫בשׂרי‬, ‫)עיני‬. This is without precedent in the speeches of the three friends, but extremely common in Job’s speeches. The friends do of course use some first-person forms – it would be difficult to conduct a dialogue without them – but they do so surprisingly rarely, and never for more than two verses consecutively.10 Moreover, as Greenstein recognizes, even when Eliphaz does refer to what he has “seen” elsewhere (4:8; 5:3; 15:17), what follows is invariably a reaffirmation of traditional wisdom, never an account of something that has actually happened to him, much less an attempt to introduce novel teachings.11 By contrast, nearly every one of Job’s speeches is marked by long passages in the first person, with several expressed almost entirely in first-person discourse (esp. chs. 10, 16, 19, 23, and 29–31).12 For instance, 3:24–26 reports Job’s fearful experience in a first-person form very similar to that used in 4:12–16, and this is further linked to it by the reference to “the dread that I dreaded” ( ‫פחד‬ ‫ )פחדתי‬in 3:25 (cf. the use of ‫ פחד‬in 4:14): 24 For my sighing comes like my bread, and my groans are poured out like water, 25 Because the dread that I dreaded has come upon me, and that which I feared befalls me. 26 I was not at ease, nor at peace; I had no rest; but turmoil came.

Similar complaints recur regularly in Job’s speeches, but do not appear even a single time on the lips of any other speaker in the book.13 Nor is it only such not at the beginning of a section. The only possible exception is 11:5. Elihu begins a section with ‫ ו‬twice (33:1; 34:16) and YHWH once (38:8). 10 All told, Eliphaz speaks in the first person in 4:8; 5:3, 8, 27 (Pl.); 15:6, 9–10 (Pl.), 17; Bildad in 8:9 (Pl.); 18:3 (Pl.); Zophar 20:2–3 (probably parodies Job, see below; he also cites Job in 11:4). Elihu speaks in this way more often (32:6–7, 10–22; 33:1–12 [but 33:8– 11 cites Job], 31–33; 34:2–6 [34:5–6 cites Job], 16, 31–34; 35:2–4 [35:2–3 quotes Job], 10–11; 36:2–3; 37:23), as does YHWH (38:3–4, 9–11, 23; 39:6; 40:7–8, 14–15; 41:4[12]). 11 GREENSTEIN, Skin, 73–74. The closest Eliphaz comes to such an account is in 5:3–5, where he claims to have seen a fool and cursed his house. This indeed describes something that Eliphaz has himself seen, but nothing is said to have been done to him, and he certainly does not recount his own emotional reaction to the situation, as the visionary does. 12 All told, Job speaks in the 1st person (either using 1st person verbs or suffixes) in 3:11–13, 16, 24–26; 6:2–4, 7–13, 15, 22–24, 28–30; 7:3–8, 11–16, 19–21; 9:2, 11, 14–22, 25–35; 10:1–2, 6–22; 12:3–4; 13:1–3, 6, 13–27; 14:14–17; 16:2, 4–22; 17:1–3, 6–7, 10–16; 19:2–27; 21:2–6, 27, 34; 23:2–17; 24:25; 27:2–7, 11; 29:2–25; 30:1–2, 9–31; 31:1–10, 13– 40; 40:4–5; 42:2–6. Job’s speeches in chs. 24 (except 24:25), 26, 27:13–23 and ch. 28 thus stand out as the only places Job fails to speak in the first person. 13 As GREENSTEIN, Skin, 63–77, argues, there is a clear difference between Job and his friends regarding the sources from which they claim to derive knowledge. Job speaks

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formal characteristics that link the vision to Job’s speeches. Its specific vocabulary is even more strongly tied to Job’s style over-against the friends’, and points to a more significant contrast between the vision’s portrayal and the friends’ perspective. II. The Vocabulary of the Vision within the Dialogues Witte and Cotter note the preponderance of rare terms and hapax legomena in the vision, while Harding and Notter discuss the use of its vocabulary elsewhere in the book in a general way, but no thorough comparison to Job’s and the friends’ speeches has been attempted.14 Greenstein offers some preliminary suggestions, noting especially three sets of word pairs in 4:17–19 that are repeated in Job’s speeches but nowhere else in the book.15 He concludes that the limited scope of the passage does not permit a more detailed comparison of the vision’s vocabulary within the book.16 To the contrary, however, there turns out to be a very strong lexical affinity between the vision and Job’s speeches, which is all the more striking given how brief this passage is. Excluding common structural particles and prepositions, not even one term used in the vision is distinctive of any of the friends, and only two terms even appear more often in their speeches than in Job’s, each of which occurs only a single time.17 By contrast, there are no less than three dozen terms that appear in 4:12–21 and are repeated at least twice as often in Job’s speeches as in

frequently of his own lived experience – things that have happened to him personally, and his own bodily reactions to them – while the friends never describe their own experience in this way. This epistemological contrast will be discussed further in Chapter Four below. 14 COTTER, Job 4–5, 178 n. 48, simply lists several rare terms; WITTE, Leiden, 70–71, takes their relative rarity as evidence that the text is late (though it is not clear why this should be so). HARDING, Spirit, 139–161, and NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 30–47, also discuss how the key terms in 4:12–17 are used elsewhere in the book, but neither draws any conclusions regarding the lexical affinities of the passage. 15 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 258, following WATTERS, Formula Criticism, 190, notes that ‫ אנושׁ‬and ‫ גבר‬in 4:17 are paired in 10:5, ‫ צדק‬and ‫ טהר‬in 4:17 reappear in 17:9, and ‫ חמר‬and ‫ עפר‬in 4:19 are repeated in 10:9, 27:16 and 30:19. Watters also lists additional examples in the Elihu speeches (none in those of the friends), but most are imperfect parallels: First ‫ לילה‬and ‫ תרדמה‬appear in 33:15, but that is a quotation of 4:13. Second, he lists parallels to where 4:17 parallels ‫ אנושׁ‬and ‫גבר‬, Elihu parallels ‫ אנשׁים‬and ‫ גבר‬34:8–9, 34 (cf. also 33:16–17). Finally, while “God” (‫ )אלוה‬and “maker” (‫עשׂה‬, from 4:17) are paralleled in 36:2–3, the terms there are ‫ אלוה‬and ‫פעל‬, but there is a reference to “God my maker” ( ‫אלוה‬ ‫ )עשׂי‬in 35:10. GREENSTEIN, Extent, 260, also highlights some lexical parallels between the vision and Job 3, especially the use of ‫ אבד‬in 3:3 and 4:20. 16 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 258. 17 Zophar uses ‫ שׂעפים‬from 4:13 in 20:2, and Eliphaz uses ‫ יסוד‬from 4:19 in 22:16. Neither occurs anywhere else in the book.

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those of the three friends, taken together.18 As many as a dozen of these are distinctive of Job, either appearing exclusively in his speeches, or only rarely elsewhere.19 This general trend is interesting, but more important than how often these terms are used is how, and this is where the vision’s affinity to Job’s language and style is especially pronounced. First, though, a distinction should be drawn between 4:12–16 and 4:17–21: Though Job makes frequent use of terms from both halves of the passage, this tendency is stronger in 4:12–16, as several key terms in 4:17–21 are more evenly distributed among the debate partners, and seem to be points of contention between Job and his friends rather than being distinctive of one or the other.20 This could result from the fact that 4:12–16 is presented as the self-description of the visionary, while 4:17–21 (at least in part) is presented as a “word” that he heard from a third party, but it has important consequences. The latter establishes several key 18 These include ‫דבר‬, ‫גנב‬, ‫אזן‬, ‫שׁמץ‬, ‫( חזיון‬if the verb form ‫ חזה‬is included), ‫לילה‬, ‫נפל‬, ‫פחד‬, ‫( קרא‬though the form used in 4:14 is ‫ קרא‬II, while Job uses ‫ קרא‬I; the friends only use the term once, also ‫ קרא‬I), ‫עצם‬, ‫רוח‬, ‫פנה‬, ‫חלף‬, ‫שׂערה‬, ‫בשׂר‬, ‫עמד‬, ‫נכר‬, ‫נגד‬, ‫עין‬, ‫קול‬, ‫שׁמע‬, ‫אנושׁ‬, ‫אלוה‬, ‫עשׂה‬, ‫גבר‬, ‫עבד‬, ‫שׂים‬, ‫חמר‬, ‫עפר‬, ‫עשׁ‬, ‫בקר‬, ‫ערב‬, ‫בלי‬, ‫נצח‬, ‫נסע‬, ‫מות‬, ‫חכמה‬. A num-

ber of additional terms are also more common in Job’s speeches than elsewhere, but do not exceed twice the number of occurrences. I exclude them due to the fact that Job speaks about twice as much as the friends, so it is to be expected that even terms they share in common will appear more often in Job’s speeches. 19 Two terms appear multiple times in Job’s speeches but nowhere else in the book: ‫גנב‬ in 4:12 (21:18; 24:14; 27:20; 30:5) and ‫ עשׁ‬in 4:19 (9:9 [‫ עשׁ‬III]; 13:28; 27:18). Several others do appear elsewhere in the book, but never or only very rarely in the speeches of the friends: ‫ נפל‬in 4:13 (8x Job: 3:16; 6:27; 12:3; 13:2, 11; 14:18; 29:24; 31:22; otherwise only in Elihu’s quotation of 4:13 in 33:15, and 4x in the prologue), ‫ בשׂר‬in 4:15 (12x Job: 6:12; 7:5; 10:4, 11; 12:10; 13:14; 14:22; 19:20, 22, 26; 21:6; 31:31; never by the friends; 5x elsewhere), ‫ עבד‬in 4:18 (5x Job: 3:19; 7:2; 19:16; 21:15; 31:13; never by the friends; 9x elsewhere),‫ חמר‬in 4:19 (4x Job: 10:9; 13:12; 27:16; 30:19; never by the friends; once by Elihu in 33:6 and once by YHWH in 38:14), ‫ אזן‬in 4:12 (6x from Job: 12:11; 13:1, 17; 28:22; 29:11; 42:5; once by the friends: 15:21; and 5x by Elihu), ‫ פחד‬in 4:14 (6x Job: 3:25[x2]; 13:11; 21:9; 23:15; 31:23; 3x by the friends: 15:21; 22:10; 25:2; and 3x by YHWH), ‫ עצמ‬in 4:14 (8x Job: 7:15, 10:11; 19:20; 21:23, 24; 30:17, 21, 30; once by the friends, in 20:11; 5x elsewhere), ‫ עמד‬in 4:16 (17x Job: 6:4; 9:35; 10:12, 17; 13:19, 20; 14:2; 17:2; 23:6, 10; 28:14; 29:5, 6, 8, 20; 30:20; 31:13; once by the friends, in 8:15; 3x by Elihu), ‫ עפר‬in 4:19 (14x Job: 7:5, 21; 10:9; 14:8, 19; 16:15; 17:16; 19:25; 21:26, 27:16; 28:2, 6; 30:6, 19; 4x by the friends: 5:6; 8:19; 20:11; 22:24; and 6x elsewhere), ‫ מות‬in 4:21 (13x Job: 3:11, 21; 7:15; 9:23; 12:2; 14:8, 10, 14; 21:23, 25; 27:15; 28:22; 30:23; 3x by the friends: 5:2, 20; 18:3; 7x elsewhere). 20 This is especially true of 4:17–19b, in which several terms appear that are more or less evenly distributed between Job and his friends, esp. ‫אנושׁ‬, ‫צדק‬, ‫אמן‬, as well as ‫לקח‬, ‫אישׁ‬, ‫רב‬, ‫שׁכן‬, ‫בית‬. In 4:19c–21 the same is true of ‫ דכא‬and esp. ‫אבד‬, but again this portion is more closely tied to Job. As noted in Chapter One, Section B.II, 4:19c–21 may also reflect the visionary’s viewpoint rather than the words of the “voice.” This use of its language could offer additional support for that conclusion.

A. The Style of the Vision

105

issues that will prove controversial in what follows, but the language of the former is uniquely tied to Job, and to Job alone. Within 4:12–16 most of the key terms and expressions which describe the experience of the visionary are used by Job to describe his own experiences in subsequent speeches, while the friends either do not use them at all, or only to describe the experiences of other people, most often Job himself or the wicked. There are two important trends in the use of these terms: one is Job’s clear tendency to describe his own body, and the other is his prominent emphasis on his own fear and confusion, especially in the presence of God. Both are almost completely absent from the speeches of the friends, yet both are central to 4:12–16. This contrast is unambiguous, whether we focus only on the specific terms actually used in the vision, or if we include also related terms and expressions. III. Corporeal Language in the Vision and the Dialogues First, consider the use of corporeal imagery. There is a strong emphasis in 4:12–16 on the speaker’s own body, using the expressions “my ear” (‫;אזני‬ 4:12), “my bones” (‫ ;עצמותי‬4:14), “my face” (or “before me,” ‫ ;פני‬4:15), “my flesh” (‫ ;בשׂרי‬4:15), and “my eyes” (‫ ;עיני‬4:16).21 It seems to have gone unnoticed, however, that this reflects perhaps the most distinctive feature of Job’s own style within the book.22 Job uses first-person singular suffixes nearly 500 times, of which over 260 refer to “my X” with a noun or substantive participle, as in the five expressions in 4:12–16.23 Meanwhile the friends do so in a

21

TSOI, Vision, 166–67, notes this language, but sees in it only evidence that “Eliphaz suggests emphatically that he personally has received the revelatory word” (167). NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 30–47, does not discuss any of these body terms within the vision except ‫אזן‬, of which she says only that it can be associated with prophecy (34). HARDING, Spirit, 137–166, also pays scant attention to this body imagery. 22 GREENSTEIN, Skin, 68–70, 75–77, distinguishes Job’s argumentative style from the friends on the grounds that Job tends to appeal to his own bodily reactions, while the friends never do, but surprisingly, he does not highlight this aspect of the vision itself (cf. 66–68). Cf. ERICKSON, Without My Flesh, 295–313, JONES, Corporeal Discourse, 845863, and NEWSOM, Contest, 134–36, on Job’s use of corporeal imagery. GILLMAYRBUCHER, Body Images, 301–326, discusses the use of such language in the Psalms. 23 Job attaches 1st Sg. suffixes to nouns or participles approximately 265 times, out of a total of at least 494 in his speeches as a whole (plus two in the prologue; 1:5, 21; there is also one 1st Pl. suffix in 26:14). These appear through nearly all of his speeches, but the exceptions are notable: In ch. 12, he surprisingly uses only one 1st Sg. suffix, in 12:3, while the rest of the speech is a parody of the friends’ source of knowledge (cf. HABEL, Job, 215–16; idem, Appeal, 266, 67; GORDIS, Book of God, 187). There are only two examples in ch. 24 (24:15 is a quotation of “the adulterer,” but 24:25 refers to Job) and none in chs. 26 or 28. In ch. 27, 1st Sg. expressions are limited to 27:2–12, but absent from the second half of the speech.

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total of only five passages.24 Even these offer only one real parallel to the vision, in Zophar’s reference to “my troubling thoughts,” “the anxiousness within me,” “and “my understanding” (20:2–3). Otherwise, Eliphaz merely claims that in Job’s place he would “commit my case to God” (5:8), urges Job to “listen to me” (15:17), and declares that “the plans of the wicked are far from me!” (22:18), while Zophar once more uses a singular first-person suffix in an explicit quotation of Job: “You say, ‘My doctrine is pure’” (11:4). Even including plural first-person suffixes only adds three further passages to the friends’ total: Bildad contrasts “our days” (8:9) with the more secure knowledge received from the ancestors (8:8–10), while Eliphaz appeals to the ancestors “on our side” (15:9–10), and quotes the wicked, who say to God “Leave us alone” and refer to “our adversaries” (22:17, 20). In all the friends’ speeches together, only Zophar’s statement in 20:2–3 stands out as an approximate parallel to the vision’s mode of first-person dialogue, and indeed it is so unusual that it is difficult to escape the impression that it is meant to parody the vision itself, with which it shares several key terms, as will be argued below. Neither in 20:2–3 nor anywhere else do the friends ever refer to their own bodies, as 4:12–16 does five times. By contrast, Job uses such first-person expressions to refer to practically everything under the sun. Not only does he speak of numerous specific body parts, including “my eyes,” “my ears,” “my tongue,” “my head,” “my face,” “my mouth,” “my teeth,” “my lips,” “my nostrils,” “my flesh,” “my skin,” “my bones,” “my hand,” “my arm,” “my feet,” “my waist,” “my kidneys,” “my heart,” “my blood,” “my bile,” “my spittle,” “my spirit,” “my breath,” and “every part of me.” He also refers to dozens of additional aspects of his life (e.g. “my strength,” “my ways,” “my days”), his experience (e.g. “my suffering,” “my glory,” “my transgressions”), his acquaintances (e.g. “my wife,” “my children,” “my servants”), his words (e.g. “my complaint,” “my case,” “my council”), and much else. The vision’s own strong emphasis on the body and personal experience of the speaker aligns very closely with this style and tone in Job’s speeches, and finds no parallel at all among the friends’. Even Elihu, who does refer to himself in ways that the friends do not, still does not truly parallel the emphasis on bodily experience seen throughout both the vision and Job’s speeches.25 24

Outside of 4:12–21, the friends use 1st person suffixes just 16 times, of which 6 are plural, and as many as 10 are paraphrases of Job or the wicked (5:8; 8:9; 11:4; 15:9, 10, 17; 20:2, 3; 22:17, 18, 20). Elihu uses first-person suffixes 61 times, and YHWH 21; Job’s servants also do so in 1:15–19. 25 Elihu uses first-person suffixes in 32:6, 10, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22; 33:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33; 34:2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 16, 32, 34, 37; 35:2, 3, 10, 11; 36:2, 3, 4; 37:1, 19. Despite their frequency, however, most of these refer only to his own words: “my opinion” (32:6, 10, 17), “my answer” (32:17), “my words” (33:1, 3; 34:2; 36:4), “my knowledge” (36:3). Only a few times does he refer to his body: “my heart” (37:1), “my

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The correspondence between Job’s approach and that seen in 4:12–16 is not merely general, however. If we consider the specific body parts mentioned in the vision, the contrast between Job and his friends is even more apparent. Every single one of the expressions “my ear(s),” “my bones,” “my face,” “my flesh” and “my eye(s)” used in the vision is repeated in Job’s speeches. None appears even a single time in any of the speeches of Eliphaz, Bildad or Zophar. Job refers once to “my ear” (‫ ;אזני‬13:1; and cf. 42:5), as does Elihu once (33:8), while the only occurrence of ‫ אזן‬in the speeches of the friends refers to the ears of the wicked (15:21).26 Job is the only person to refer to “my bones” (‫)עצמותי‬, which he does four times (7:15; 19:20; 30:17, 30; and cf. 10:11). The friends again use ‫ עצם‬just once, of the bones of the wicked (20:11).27 ‫פני‬, whether meaning “my face” or “before me” appears eight times in Job’s speeches (e.g. 9:27; 16:16; 23:17), and once in Elihu’s (33:5).28 It is never used by the friends to refer to themselves, only to refer to Job, God or the wicked.29 Even more starkly, the friends never use the term ‫“( בשׂר‬flesh”) at all, while Job uses it twelve times, of which seven refer explicitly to “my flesh” (e.g. 6:12; 7:5; 19:26) and two more refer to Job indirectly (10:11; 31:31).30 Of the other five occurrences of the term in the book, at least one and as many as three also refer to Job.31 Finally, “my eye(s)” lips” (32:20), “my mouth” (33:2), “my ear” (33:8). He also refers to “my pressure” (33:7) and “my maker” (32:22; 35:10; 36:3), and quotes Job’s reference “my feet” and “my paths” (33:11), “my right” (34:5–6), and “my wound” (34:6), as well as the sufferer’s [=Job’s?] references to “my soul” and “my life” (33:27–28). The closest parallel to 4:12– 16 is Elihu’s reference to “my belly” in 32:18–19, which is ready to burst, but this still refers to Elihu’s own words rather than to something that has happened to his body. On Elihu’s body imagery, cf. LYNCH, Bursting at the Seams, 345–364, esp. 350–52. 26 Job (12:11; 13:17; 28:22; 29:11) and Elihu (33:16; 34:2, 3; 36:10, 15) also use the term ‫ אזן‬more generally to refer to the ears of others. 27 Job also refers to the bones of the wicked in 21:23, 24, which he denies suffer, and contrasts his own suffering bones (30:17) with “the bones [i.e. strength] of your [=God’s] hand” (30:21). Elihu refers to the bones of the sufferer (=Job?) in 33:19, 21; YHWH refers to the bones of Behemoth (40:18), and the Satan refers to the bones of Job (2:5). 28 Job refers to himself with ‫ פני‬in 9:27; 16:8, 14, 16; 23:17; 29:24; 30:10, 11 (cf. also 3:24). He also frequently uses the term to refer to the faces of others, e.g. 6:28; 9:24; 13:8, 10, 15, 16, 20, 24; 14:20; 21:8, 31; 23:4, 5. Elihu also uses the term of others in 33:21, 26; 34:19, 29; 35:12, 14. 29 The friends use the term 6 times, 3 to refer to Job (11:15, 19; 22:26), once of God (15:4), once of the wicked (15:27), and in the plural to mean, apparently, “the favored” (22:8). This excludes temporal uses of ‫( לפני‬e.g. 8:12; 15:7). 30 He refers to “my flesh” in 6:12; 7:5; 13:14; 19:20, 22, 26; 21:6; he also refers to his own flesh (‫ )בשׂר‬indirectly in 10:11 and 31:31, while using the term three other times in other connections (10:4; 12:10; 14:22). 31 The Satan refers to Job’s flesh (2:5) and Elihu refers to the flesh of the sufferer (33:21, 25), which may again allude to Job. The only exceptions are Elihu’s reference to “all flesh” (34:15) and YHWH’s reference to the flesh of Leviathan (41:15).

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(‫ )עיני‬occurs ten times in Job’s speeches (e.g. 3:10; 19:27; 42:5), and nowhere else in the book. The friends refer to the eyes of God, Job and the wicked, but never to their own eyes.32 In sum, of the five body parts modified by firstperson suffixes in the vision, Job uses the exact same expressions 30 times, while his three friends never do so a single time. This first-person corporeal imagery may be the most distinctive feature of Job’s language within the book as a whole, and 4:12–16 directly corresponds to it, in stark contrast to the consistent, third-person speech of the friends. Not only is Job the only person in the book to refer to himself in this way, but even when the friends use these terms, they do so to refer to Job’s “face” and “eyes,” or the “ears” and “bones” of the wicked, never to refer to themselves.33 This is not simply a difference in style, therefore, but a fundamental dichotomy between Job’s perspective and that of his friends. The visceral, corporeal suffering that stands at the center of Job’s complaint is nowhere else invoked by the friends as a source of knowledge. It is not just rare for Eliphaz to describe himself as the visionary does; it contradicts his entire approach to the world. IV. Theophany and Its Effects in the Vision and the Dialogues The same is true of the dread and confusion caused by the divine presence in 4:12–16.34 This language is less widespread in the book than the body imagery just discussed, but it may be more important because it does not just indicate an epistemological difference; it reflects a basic contrast between how Job and the friends’ describe their own relations to God. For instance, ‫פחד‬, “dread,” is used twice in 4:14 to describe the visionary’s own experience. Job uses the root similarly, repeating it four times to describe his own experience of God’s presence (3:25[x2]; 23:15; 31:23). He also denies that the wicked feel “dread” (21:9), and asks the friends whether they would not feel the same in God’s presence: “Will not his majesty terrify you, and his dread [‫ ]פחד‬fall upon you?” (13:11), implying that they have not experienced such “dread” as Job has. By contrast, Eliphaz is the only one of the friends to use the term, Of 45 occurrences of ‫ עין‬outside of the vision, 30 are on the lips of Job (including 3 in ch. 28), of which 10 refer to “my eyes” (3:10; 7:7; 13:1; 16:20; 17:2, 7; 19:27; 31:1, 7; 42:5) and another refers to Job’s eyes indirectly (29:15). The narrator also refers to Job’s eyes (32:1; but also once to the friends’ eyes: 2:12). The friends themselves only use the term eight times, of God (11:4; 15:15; 25:5), Job (15:12, 18:3), the wicked (11:20) and generically (20:9; 22:29), never to refer to themselves. Even Elihu uses it only twice, both to refer to God (34:21; 36:7). 33 Elihu refers once to his own “face” (33:5) and “ears” (33:8), but otherwise even he uses these terms only of third parties, just as the friends do. 34 The emphasis on fear in 4:14 is raised as an objection against the attribution to Eliphaz by TUR-SINAI, Job, 89–90; GINSBERG, Patient, 105; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 258. The latter also notes (249) the similar language used in 4:12–16 and ch. 9 (esp. 9:11). 32

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which he does twice. First, he uses it to foretell the doom of the wicked: “The sound of terrors [‫ ]קול־פחדים‬is in his ears; in peace the destroyer befalls him” (15:21).35 Then, concluding that Job must himself be wicked, Eliphaz applies ‫ פחד‬to Job as well: “Therefore traps are all around you, and sudden dread [‫ ]פחד‬terrifies you” (22:10). In that light, the visionary’s claim that “Dread [‫ ]פחד‬has befallen me, and trembling, and made all my bones shake [‫פחד‬, Hiph]” (4:14) is not only more likely to describe Job’s experience of the divine presence, but for Eliphaz to speak in this way would amount to an admission that he himself is among the wicked.36 We have already noted that “bones” also appears only once in the friends’ speeches, again to describe the fate of the wicked (20:11), whereas Job uses it four times to describe himself. But it is not just that Job refers to his own bones while the friends do not. This term is characteristic of his complaint that he suffers from God’s attacks. In 7:13–15 Job complains explicitly of terrifying dreams and visions from God, then concludes that he would prefer death to “my bones”: 13

When I said, “My couch will comfort me, my bed will ease my complaint,” 14 then you [=God] frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, 15 so that my throat would prefer strangling, death more than my bones [‫]מעצמותי‬.37

This passage will be discussed more fully in Section C below, as it is plainly an allusion to the vision itself, but for now it is enough to recognize the link between Job’s “visions” and a terror extending to his very “bones.” A link between God’s aggressive presence and Job’s “bones” is also emphasized in 19:20–21 and 30:17–21, both of which describe Job’s miserable state as the result of God’s own attacks. Meanwhile, when Zophar claims of the wicked 35 This follows shortly after Eliphaz’s paraphrase of the vision in 15:14–16, and is itself followed by an extended depiction of the destruction of the wicked. The use of ‫ קול‬in 15:21 is also distinctive. It is used in 4:16 to conclude the visionary portion of the passage, but is otherwise used by the friends only twice: here in 15:21 to describe the terrifying sounds that assail the wicked, and in 4:10 of the futile “voice” of the lion. Job, by contrast, uses the term 5 times, with various referents, including himself (9:16), never of the wicked. As noted, this is also the only occurrence of ‫ אזן‬in the friends’ speeches. 36 This also reflects a broader contrast between their speeches that is not restricted to the specific terms used in the vision itself, as Job regularly describes his own fear and confusion (e.g. 3:25; 7:14; 23:15; 31:23), while the friends only attribute such emotions to Job or the wicked (e.g. 4:5–6; 15:21–22; 18:11–14; 20:25; 22:10). 37 The final clause is elliptical and perhaps defective. DUHM, Hiob, 44, and SEOW, Job, 508–9, suggest that ‫ מאסתי‬should be read with 7:15b, rather than with 7:16a, where it makes no sense. SEOW, Job, 508, thus translates 7:15b: “Death more than my body-frame that I abhor.” This is possible, but still awkward.

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that “His bones [‫]עצמותיו‬, once full of vigor, will lie down in the dust with him” (20:11), Job retorts that the wicked lies down in strength and prosperity: “One dies in full health [‫]עצם‬, wholly at peace and secure, his loins full of milk and the marrow of his bones [‫ ]עצמותיו‬moist” (21:23–24). Here again the vision’s image of dread in “my bones” is not just more fitting on Job’s lips than the friends’; it reflects a basic contradiction between their perspectives. Job is the one who feels dread at God’s approach and who suffers in his bones; the friends can imagine such a fate only for the wicked.38 Similarly, Job uses ‫ רוח‬both of his own “spirit,” and to describe God’s activity against him, while the friends use it almost exclusively to refer to Job or to describe God’s judgment against the wicked.39 For instance, Job complains that “the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit [‫ ]רוחי‬drinks their poison; the terrors of God [‫ ]בעותי אלוה‬are marshaled against me” (6:4), and that “Terrors [‫ ]בלהות‬have turned upon me; my dignity is pursued as by the wind [‫]כרוח‬, and my safety has passed away like a cloud” (30:15). By contrast, Eliphaz twice refers to God’s ‫ רוח‬as an agent of judgment against the wicked: “By the breath of God they perish, and by the spirit [‫ ]רוח‬of his anger they come to an end” (4:9), and “he will not escape from darkness; a flame will dry up his shoots, and he will be swept away by the wind [‫ ]רוח‬of his mouth” (15:30). Job responds to this much as he did to Zophar’s description of the “bones” of the wicked: “[How often] are they like straw before the wind [‫]רוח‬, like chaff that a whirlwind snatches away [‫( ”?]גנב‬21:18; but cf. 27:20). Otherwise, the friends use ‫ רוח‬to reject Job’s own words as “a great wind” (‫ ;רוח כביר‬8:2) or “windy knowledge” (‫ ;דעת־רוח‬15:2), and to rebuke Job for turning “your spirit [‫ ]רוחך‬against God” (15:13).40 The only exception to this trend is once again Zophar’s exclamation in 20:2–3, which we should now consider in more detail:

38 The same is also true of the term ‫ בשׂר‬in 4:15, which the friends never use at all, but Job again links to his suffering at God’s hand (e.g. 7:5; 19:20, 22; 21:6). He uses the synonym ‫ עור‬similarly (e.g. 7:5; 19:20; 30:30). The only occurrence of ‫ עור‬in the friends’ speeches refers to the skin of the wicked (18:13). 39 Of 32 other occurrences of ‫ רוח‬in the book, 17 are attributed to Job and 6 to the friends. Job most often refers to his own “spirit” or “breath” (6:4, 26; 7:7, 11; 9:18; 10:12; 17:1; 19:17; 21:4; 27:3). Several of these assert or imply that the “spirit” in question is given by God (10:12; 27:3; cf. 12:10), and he also refers to God’s spirit in 26:13 (probably secondarily), 30:22 and probably 21:18; 30:15. A mundane reference to the wind appears in 28:25. By contrast, apart from the distinctive exception in 20:3, the friends only use ‫רוח‬ of Job (8:2; 15:13; probably 15:2) and of God’s action against the wicked (4:9; 15:30). 40 Job also turns this back against the friends in 16:3, where a rare use of the 2nd Sg. could imply that he is quoting them (cf. 16:2 “I have heard many such things” and 16:4, “I also could speak like you”). NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 41–44, overviews the use of ‫רוח‬ in the book, and suggest that it is “ein Leitbegriff,” which casts a critical eye toward claims to pass along speech from the spirit of God (43).

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Surely my troubling thoughts [‫ ]שׂעפי‬turn me about, because of the anxiousness within me [‫]חושׁי בי‬. 3 I hear reproach that shames me [‫]כלמתי‬, and a spirit from my understanding [‫ ]רוח מבינתי‬answers me [‫]יענני‬.41 2

As noted, this sudden burst of first-person discourse is the only real parallel to 4:12–16 within the speeches of the friends, and made all the more surprising by the specific language used. ‫ שׂעפים‬is unique to this passage and 4:13, which raises the strong possibility that this is an allusion to the vision itself. This is confirmed by several further lexical links across 20:2–11, beginning with the otherwise unprecedented use of ‫ רוח‬in 20:3.42 Just as important, the sense of confusion implied by ‫ שׂעפים‬and ‫ חושׁ‬is unique in the friends’ speeches,43 while the use of ‫ כלמה‬is even more problematic. The latter term does not appear elsewhere in the book, but it is common in the Psalms, where it does not merely refer to being insulted, but to shame or disgrace, most often in descriptions of the fate of the wicked and complaints by the suffering.44 It would be very surprising for Zophar to claim this of himself, but it is well in keeping with Job’s sentiments. Habel notes that this probably alludes to 19:3, where Job complains that “these ten times you have humiliated [‫;כלם‬ Hiph] me.”45 But where Habel claims that Zophar sets his own shame against Job’s, it is far more likely that he is parodying Job’s complaint. In fact, Zophar has already explicitly applied this term to Job, in 11:3, “Your babble may silence men, but when you mock, will no one shame [‫ ;כלם‬Hiph] you?” In that light, it is probable that 20:3 also refers to Job’s shame rather than Zophar’s, implying that the same is true of the “troubling thoughts” and “anxiousness” in 20:2. This is also supported by the larger context. Job 20:2–3 is the introduction to the speech, which is normally where the friends respond directly to Job’s own statements,46 and the following speech also parodies a great deal of Job’s 41 The OG is significantly different here, omitting the reference to troubling thoughts and anxiousness from 20:2, and lacking 20:3 entirely. 42 Cf. also ‫ שׁמע‬in 20:3, which might seem too common a verb to be significant, but it only appears 4 other times in the friends’ speeches, and only here in the first person, as in 4:16. But it occurs 18 times in Job’s speeches, several refering to Job himself directly (16:2) or indirectly (13:1; 42:4, 5). The expressions ‫ לנצח יאבד‬in 20:7 and ‫ חזיון לילה‬in 20:8 also draw directly from 4:20 and 4:13 respectively. ‫ עין‬in 20:9, and ‫ עצם‬and ‫ עפר‬in 20:11 also parallel the vision. These allusions will be discussed in Section B.III below. 43 ‫ חושׁ‬indicates haste, and is otherwise used in the book only by Job, in 31:5. 44 ‫ כלמה‬commonly describes the wicked (e.g. Ps 35:26; 71:13; 109:29; Isa 30:3; 45:16; Jer 20:11; Ezek 16:52, 54; 32:24, 25, 30). It is also the state of shame to which the suffering are reduced, and from which they beg for relief (e.g. Ps 4:3[2]; 44:16[15]; 69:8, 20[7, 19]; Isa 50:6; 61:7). 45 HABEL, Job, 315. 46 Cf. esp. 8:2–3; 11:2–4; 15:2–8; 18:2–3, each of which paraphrases Job (once with an explicit citation formula, in 11:4), then responds in the following verses.

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language.47 More importantly, Zophar follows this description of “my troubling thoughts” and “my understanding” with a direct appeal to ancestral wisdom in 20:4–5, which establishes the topic which will occupy the entire rest of the speech: the dismal fate of the wicked. In other words, despite the reference to confusion and the apparent appeal to special revelation in 20:2– 3, what Zophar actually has to say in this speech is a reaffirmation of the same traditional view known “from of old” (20:4), that the wicked are destroyed (20:5–29), which Zophar certainly does not find troubling. In that light, the strong association between Job’s perspective and the style of firstperson speech in 20:2–3 is much more plausibly read as a parody of Job than as an expression of Zophar’s own state of mind or source of knowledge.48 The “troubling thoughts” are not Zophar’s, but those against which he sets his own views in 20:4–29. In that case, the reference to ‫ רוח‬in 20:3 fits neatly with the friends’ use of the term elsewhere to refer to Job’s own words or God’s actions against the wicked, never to the words of the friends themselves. Only Job uses ‫ רוח‬to refer to his own experience, just as he is the only one to describe himself with ‫כלם‬. All of this suggests that 20:2–3 is the exception that proves the rule: Not only is the kind of troubled first-person discourse absent from their speeches, but it is even rejected by the friends. Returning to the vision itself, something similar is seen in the use of the verb of which ‫ רוח‬is apparently the subject in 4:15, ‫חלף‬. Job uses the term twice to describe his own experience.49 In 9:26, Job describes “my days” (9:25) quickly passing “like skiffs of reed” (9:26), while in 9:11 he explicitly attributes ‫ חלף‬to God, and describes it as an act of violence against him: 11

Surely he goes by me, but I cannot see him; he passes by [‫]חלף‬, but I cannot discern him. 12 Surely he snatches away; who can turn him back? Who can say to him, “What are you doing?”

There are several links between this passage and the vision, but it is enough for now to see that Job again uses the term to describe God’s actions against him specifically. By contrast, Zophar is the only friend to use the term ‫חלף‬, which he does twice, both times to describe the fate of the wicked. First, he seems to respond to Job’s comments in 11:10–11: If he passes by [‫]חלף‬, and imprisons, and summons for judgment, who can turn him back? 11 For he recognizes deceitful people, so when he sees iniquity, will he not examine it? 10

47

HOLBERT, Skies, 171–79; SMITH, Vision, 456. TUR-SINAI, Job, 309–310; noted by SMITH, Vision, 458, without committing to it. 49 9:11, 26; he also uses the Hiph twice with the meaning “renew” (14:7; 29:20). 48

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Then later, Zophar describes the death of the wicked, struck through (‫ )חלף‬by a bronze arrow, as a punishment from God (20:24). Once again, the use of ‫ חלף‬in the visionary’s self-description in 4:15 is consistent with Job’s descriptions of his own experience, but stands in tension with its use by the friends to describe the wicked. Like the vision’s body imagery, therefore, many of the terms used to describe the visionary’s fearful experience are used by Job to describe his own experience of oppression and judgment from God, while the friends apply them almost exclusively to Job or the wicked, not to themselves. This has direct implications for both the attribution of the vision and its interpretation. Against the common assumption that the vision’s ambivalent language implies a subtle critique of Eliphaz, this vocabulary is nowhere else used to undermine the friends in that way, but instead to mark out a fundamental conflict between their perspective and Job’s. For Job, God has turned oppressive, and his presence is a source of terror and confusion. For the friends, such experiences are a clear sign of judgment, which falls exclusively on the wicked. This difference stands at the heart of their dispute, and is constantly emphasized through the very language and imagery that the visionary uses to imply that God has deceived and condemned him. Even apart from the relative frequency of this language within the dialogues, its consistent use to mark out Job and his friends’ conflicting views of the fate of the wicked leaves it unthinkable that Eliphaz would introduce his own vision in such a way. To do so would be no “subtle” hint that the vision may not be genuine – it would be a frank admission that he is himself among the wicked. Yet Job’s use of this language poses no such problems. To the contrary, he regularly describes his own conflicted and confusing relation to God with such imagery, while insisting that it reflects God’s aggression, not his own wickedness. This, as we will soon see, is precisely how Job’s own responses to the vision also present it, not as a self-condemnation but rather as the primary evidence that God has turned against him. V. The Language of 4:17–21 in the Dialogues Yet all of this leaves still more ambivalent the message that the vision introduces in 4:17–21. The role of this passage in the dialogues is significantly more complex than that just traced regarding 4:12–16, but it points in the same direction. On the one hand, 4:17–21 introduces several key terms that stand in dispute between Job and his friends. The most important of these are ‫“( צדק‬to be righteous,” or “to be innocent”), which Job uses nine times and the friends five,50 and ‫“( אבד‬to perish”), which Job and the friends each use 50 Job uses ‫ צדק‬in 6:29; 9:2, 15, 20; 10:15; 13:18; 27:5; 29:14; 31:6; the friends use it in 8:3, 6; 11:2; 15:14; 22:3; 25:4. Its importance in the book is also reflected by the narrator (32:2), Elihu (33:12, 32; 34:5; 35:2, 7; 36:3), and YHWH (40:8).

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seven times.51 Even here, however, the ways Job and the friends employ these terms are distinctive, and several other terms within 4:17–21 boast a much stronger affinity with the language of Job’s speeches than those of the friends.52 For instance, we have already noted the three word pairs identified by Greenstein, which are repeated from 4:17–21 by Job but not the friends. Of these, the usage of ‫“( אנושׁ‬a mortal”) and ‫“( גבר‬a man”) is especially noteworthy. Not only do they appear as a pair only in 4:17 and 10:5, but individually both terms are much more common in Job’s speeches than the friends’, where he uses them in various contexts, but the friends do so mostly in allusions to the vision.53 Here as well there are a number of terms that Job uses to describe his own experience, but the friends apply primarily or exclusively to the wicked. This is especially the case in 4:19c–21, which uses five terms to describe the fate of human beings: They are “crushed” (‫)דכא‬, “destroyed” (‫)כתת‬, “perish” (‫)אבד‬, “pulled up” (‫ )נסע‬and “die” (‫)מות‬. Job uses ‫ אבד‬and ‫ מות‬to affirm the same: “water wears away stones; torrents wash away the dust of the earth, and you destroy [‫ ;אבד‬Hiph] the hope of a mortal” (14:19). “But a man [‫]גבר‬ dies [‫ ]מות‬and disappears; a human being expires, and where is he?” (14:10).54 But Job also personalizes this in a way that 4:19c–21 does not make explicit, repeating four of these five verbs to complain of his own fate,

51 Job uses ‫ אבד‬in 3:3; 6:18; 12:23; 14:19; 29:13; 30:2; 31:19; the friends use it in 4:7, 9, 11; 8:13; 11:20; 18:17; 20:7. It appears nowhere else in the book. Other terms in some dispute include ‫אמן‬, which Job uses 4 times (9:16; 12:20; 24:22; 29:24) and the friends 3 (15:15, 22, 31; YHWH also uses it twice in 39:12, 24), and ‫דכא‬, which each uses twice (Job in 6:9; 19:2; the friends in 5:4; 22:9; also Elihu in 34:25). 52 Terms from 4:17–21 that are at least twice common in Job’s speeches than the friends include the verbs ‫עשׂה‬, ‫שׂים‬, ‫ נסע‬and ‫מות‬, and the nouns ‫אנושׁ‬, ‫אלוה‬, ‫גבר‬, ‫עבד‬, ‫חמר‬, ‫עפר‬, ‫עשׁ‬, ‫בקר‬, ‫ערב‬, and ‫חכמה‬. 53 Job uses ‫ אנושׁ‬9 times (7:1, 17; 9:2; 10:4, 5; 13:9; 14:19; 28:4, 13) and the friends 4 times (5:17; 15:14; 25:4, 6), but three of the latter are in paraphrases of the vision. Job also uses ‫ גבר‬7 times (3:3, 23; 10:5; 14:10, 14; 16:21; 21:7) and the friends only twice (15:25; 22:2), either or both of which might allude to the vision in context. The pairing of ‫אלוה‬ (“God”) and ‫“( עשׂה‬Maker”) to describe God in 4:17 is also interesting. Job uses ‫ אלוה‬24 times (3:4, 23; 6:4, 8, 9; 9:13; 10:2; 12:4, 6; 16:20, 21; 19:6, 21, 26; 21:9, 19; 24:12; 27:3, 8, 10; 29:2, 4; 31:2, 6) while the friends altogether use it only 8 times (4:9; 5:17; 11:5, 6, 7; 15:8; 22:12, 26). Elihu also uses it 6 times (33:12, 26; 35:10; 36:2; 37:15, 22), and YHWH himself twice (39:17; 40:2). Similarly, Job uses ‫ עשׂה‬19 times (9:9, 10, 12; 10:8, 9, 12; 12:9; 13:20; 14:5, 9; 21:31; 23:9, 13; 27:18; 28:25, 26; 31:14, 15), mostly to refer to God’s activity, while the friends do so only 4 times (5:9, 12; 15:27; 25:2). The term also occurs 12 other times in the book, with various senses. This is particularly notable given that Eliphaz’s paraphrase of 4:17–19 omits these explicit references to God (15:14–16). Job retains a reference to God (‫ )אל‬in his own paraphrase in 9:2, which is quoted by Bildad. 54 Job also uses ‫ אבד‬to refer to the fate of mortals in general in 12:23, and ‫ מות‬in the same way in 9:23; 14:14; 21:23, 25.

A. The Style of the Vision

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or to wish that God would finally finish him off.55 The friends never apply any of these terms to themselves or humanity in general. So while Job uses ‫ דכא‬of himself (6:9; 19:2), Eliphaz is the only friend to use the term, applying it to the children of the fool (5:4), and accusing Job of crushing the arms of orphans (22:9). While Job uses ‫ אבד‬and ‫ מות‬to refer to himself and mortals in general, the friends apply both exclusively to the wicked and the fool (e.g. 4:7–9; 5:2, 20).56 Similarly to 4:12–16, therefore, 4:19c–21 combines several terms that Job applies to himself but the friends apply only to the wicked. But there is a difference here, as unlike 4:12–16, 4:19c–21 does not directly describe the visionary’s own experience. Job’s application of this language to himself in later speeches is therefore a further inference from the vision, not a simple reaffirmation of it. Nonetheless, it is an inference that accepts the pessimistic view summarized in 4:19c–21. Since any mortal can perish in this way, as Job also affirms, the specific mortal Job obviously can as well. By contrast, the friends directly deny that any mortal can perish, insisting that the innocent and pious are preserved, and only the wicked and the fool need fear such a fate. The latter is not merely an alternative interpretation of 4:19c–21; it is a repudiation of it, as will become still clearer as we examine specific passages in more detail below. Therefore if 4:12–16 describes the visionary himself in terms that are entirely fitting on Job’s lips but that would be self-condemning on the lips of Eliphaz, 4:19–21 reflects that dispute from a different angle, as Job accepts and builds on the indiscriminate destruction it affirms, while the friends emphatically reject it. What then of 4:17–19b? As noted, the key term ‫ צדק‬introduced in 4:17 is important to both Job and his friends, and their use of it and other terms from 4:17–19 sets them in strong contrast. In this case, however, they do more than just parallel isolated terms and expressions; both Job and his friends directly quote from 4:17–19 at length. It is time now to turn to those quotations and the many other allusions to the vision within the first two speech cycles. As we will see, it is not just that Job speaks in a similar manner to the vision, while the friends do not, but that Job draws out a number of radical conclusions from it, while the friends reject both Job’s interpretation and the vision upon which it is based. He complains of his fate with ‫ דכא‬in 19:2, ‫ נסע‬in 19:10 and ‫ מות‬in 30:23, and wishes for a quick death with ‫ אבד‬in 3:3, ‫ מות‬in 3:11, 21; 7:15, and ‫ דכא‬in 6:9. ‫ כתת‬does not appear outside 4:20 in the book. The obvious tension between Job’s complaints of death, and wishes that it would come quickly, is distinctive of his speeches as a whole (cf. e.g. KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 153–161; KUMMEROW, Hopeful or Hopeless, 1–40). 56 The friends use ‫ אבד‬to refer to the death of the wicked in 4:9, 11; 8:13; 11:20; 18:17; 20:7, and ‫ מות‬to do so in 5:2; 18:13. In 4:7 and 5:20 they deny that the innocent or pious ever “perish” or “die.” The friends do not use ‫ נסע‬from 4:21a at all. Job’s use of it to describe himself in 19:10 is the only other occurrence in the book. 55

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B. The Friends’ Responses to the Vision B. The Friends’ Responses to the Vision

Not only is the literary style of the vision unprecedented in the friends’ speeches, but their quotations of and allusions to it are also nearly all critical. Against its denial of human righteousness, they insist on a clear dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked. They never build on the vision’s imagery, and never attribute it to Eliphaz. On the contrary, they often blend their allusions to the vision with expressions from Job’s own speeches, and in at least one case, Eliphaz even appears to attribute the vision to Job. I. Allusions to the Vision in Eliphaz’s First Speech We begin with the speech in which the vision itself appears, which parallels quite a lot of its language, especially in 4:7–11 and 5:1–7.57 But in line with the general pattern detected across the book, these parallels contrast with the vision itself, rather than supporting or building on it. We have already noted that the use of tri-cola, repeated first-person suffixes, body imagery, and emphasis on fear and confusion in 4:12–16 are all unusual within this speech, yet the use of them Eliphaz does make is important: Where he speaks in the first person, it is only to assure Job of the traditional contrast between the wicked (4:8; 5:3) and the righteous (5:8, 27).58 Similarly, Eliphaz does not repeat any of the specific body terms from 4:12–16 in the rest of the speech, nor ever refer to his own body at all, but he does describe the bodies of others, particularly the suffering, who are supported (4:3–4), the wicked, who perish (4:10–11, 5:12, 15–16, 21), and God, who destroys the wicked (4:9) and heals the righteous (5:18).59 Likewise, Eliphaz never describes his own dread or uncertainty,60 but he does refer to Job’s fear, in 4:5–6: 57

All told, Eliphaz repeats no less than 17 terms from the vision in this speech (excluding common particles): ‫דבר‬, ‫לקח‬, ‫לילה‬, ‫קרא‬, ‫רב‬, ‫רוח‬, ‫קול‬, ‫שׁמע‬, ‫אנושׁ‬, ‫אלוה‬, ‫עשׂה‬, ‫שׂים‬, ‫עפר‬, ‫דכא‬, ‫בלי‬, ‫אבד‬, and ‫מות‬. 58 The only 1st person suffix Eliphaz uses in the entire speech is in 5:8 (“my case”), where he is speaking of what he would do in Job’s place. By contrast, he uses 15 3rd person suffixes (4:8, 9; 5:3, 4, 5, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 26, 27[x2]), and 19 2nd person suffixes (4:2, 4, 5, 6; 5:1, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27). Twice he uses 1st person independent pronouns for emphasis: to affirm that he has seen that the wicked bring trouble upon themselves (4:8), and to insist that he would seek God (5:8). 59 According to Eliphaz, Job formerly strengthened the drooping “hands” and faltering “knees” of the suffering (4:3–4), God blasts the wicked with “the spirit of his anger” ( ‫רוח‬ ‫ )אפו‬which could also be translated “the breath of his nose” (4:9). The “teeth” of the lion are broken, an image of the wicked (4:10–11), while God thwarts the “hands” of the cunning (5:12) and saves the needy from their “mouth” and “hand” (5:15, 16). God’s own “hands” heal those who do not reject his discipline (5:17–18). Such pious people will be protected from “the scourging tongue” (5:21). 60 Contra WEISS, Bible from Within, 163–187; J. C. L. GIBSON, Eliphaz, 259–272.

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5

For now it comes to you and you are impatient, it reaches you and you are dismayed [‫]בהל‬. 6 Is not your fear [‫ ]יראה‬your folly [‫]כסלה‬, the integrity of your ways your hope?61

As throughout the friends’ speeches, this fear (‫ בהל‬and ‫ )יראה‬is attributed to Job, not allowed to describe Eliphaz’s own state of mind. Moreover, it is repudiated, at least in 4:5, if not also in 4:6. The latter reference to “your fear” is generally read as an ellipsis for “your fear of God,” that is, “your piety,” but Wolfers argues that following ‫בהל‬,62 it is more likely that ‫ יראה‬also refers to real fear, not piety.63 In that case, ‫ כסלה‬would refer to “folly,” as it seems to do in the only other occurrence of this feminine form (Ps 85:9[8]), not “confidence,” as it is usually translated in Job 4:6.64 If this is correct, then both verses would deny that Job should fear, which is further supported by the promise in 5:21 that if Job truly seeks God, he will be delivered, and “will not fear [‫ ]ירא‬the destruction that comes.”65 By contrast, the fool is slain by “vexation” and “passion” (5:2), and the cunning grope about in darkness (5:14). Not only does Eliphaz attribute fear to Job rather than himself, but he seems to reject the very notion that any should fear God except the wicked, leaving the visionary’s fearful reaction in 4:14 strongly at odds with the speech in which it appears. The anthropology expressed in 4:17–21 also sharply conflicts with the rest of chs. 4–5. Where the vision collapses all distinctions between the righteous and unrighteous, and concludes that any human being can perish suddenly, Eliphaz insists on a direct contrast between the innocent and the wicked. This is clearest in 4:7–11, where Eliphaz ties this to the same term ‫ אבד‬which 4:20 applied to mortals in general. He also parallels other terms from the vision, giving them a very different sense:

61 This requires deleting the ‫ ו‬before ‫תם‬, as most have done regardless of how they interpret 4:6 (e.g. BHS, NRSV, NJPS, FOHRER, Hiob, 130). Alternatively, ‫ ו‬could be emphatic, “as for your hope” (so POPE, Job, 36; CLINES, Job, 1.109). 62 The term appears elsewhere in the book only in reference to Job, always with the sense of terror or dismay (21:6; 22:10; 23:15, 16). Elsewhere it occasionally means “hurry” (e.g. 2 Chr 26:20), but most often means dismay in the face of death (e.g. Gen 45:3; Exod 15:15; 2 Chr 32:18; Ps 2:5; 6:3–4[2–3]; Isa 13:8). 63 WOLFERS, Job 15,4.5, 386. The only parallels to the purported ellipsis are 15:4 and 22:4, which are also questionable (WOLFERS, Job 15,4.5, 386; cf. also HARDING, Spirit, 155). Both of the latter also refer to Job. 64 WOLFERS, Job 15,4.5, 386. OG translates ‫ כסלה‬with ἀφροσύνη, “folly” in Job 4:6. 65 This is also supported by the probability of an allusion to Isa 35:3–4 in 4:2–6 as a whole; see Chapter Four, Section B.I.

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4:7–11 (Eliphaz)

4:15–16, 19c–21 (The Vision)

7

15

Think now – who that was innocent ever perished? or where were the upright destroyed? 8 As I have seen, those who plow trouble and sow misfortune harvest it. 9 By the breath of God they perish, and by the spirit of his anger they come to an end. 10 The roar of the lion, the voice of the lion, the teeth of the lion are broken; 11 The lion perishes without prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

‫ זכר־נא מי הוא נקי אבד‬7 ‫ואיפה ישׁרים נכחדו‬ ‫ כאשׁר ראיתי חרשׁי און‬8 ‫וזרעי עמל יקצרהו‬ ‫ מנשׁמת אלוה יאבדו‬9 ‫ומרוח אפו יכלו‬ ‫ שׁאגת אריה וקול שׁחל‬10 ‫ושׁני כפירים נתעו‬ ‫ לישׁ אבד מבלי־טרף‬11 ‫ובני לביא יתפרדו‬

Then a spirit passes before my face, and the hair of my flesh bristles. 16 It stands still, but I cannot recognize its appearance. A form is in front of my eyes – silence, then I hear a voice…. 19c They are crushed before a moth, 20 from morning to evening they are destroyed; they perish forever without notice. 21 Is not their cord pulled up within them? They die, and not in wisdom.

‫ ורוח על־פני יחלף‬15 ‫תסמר שׂערת בשׂרי‬ ‫ יעמד ולא־אכיר מראהו‬16 ‫תמונה לנגד עיני‬ …‫דממה וקול אשׁמע‬ ‫ ידכאום לפני־עשׁ‬19c ‫ מבקר לערב יכתו‬20 ‫מבלי משׂים לנצח יאבדו‬ ‫ הלא־נסע יתרם בם‬21 ‫ימותו ולא בחכמה‬

Here Eliphaz both assumes that it is possible to be innocent, and insists that those who are do not perish (‫)אבד‬, while the wicked cannot escape destruction. In 4:11 Eliphaz even parallels the expression “perish without” (‫ אבד‬+ ‫ )מבלי‬from 4:20, but applies it to the lion, an image of the wicked, rather than human beings in general as in the vision.66 The lion perishes “without prey,” suggesting that its wickedness comes to nothing, whereas the vision affirmed that human beings perish “without notice,” an ambiguous expression that could imply a failure to foresee one’s own demise, or a lack of concern on the part of others. Despite the ambiguity in 4:20, the two passages are not compatible. Even if Beuken were correct that the lion refers to all human power – which is unlikely – the contrast in 4:7–9 between the innocent and the wicked is explicit. Those who plow iniquity “perish,” and “come to an end,” while the innocent never “perish” nor are they “destroyed.”67 66 BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 304–5, admits that the psalms typically use the lion as an image of the wicked (e.g. Ps 7:3[2]; 17:12; 22:14, 22[13, 21]; 34:11[10]; 35:17; 58:7[6]), but he claims without evidence that it refers to all human power in Job 4:10–11. This too quickly dismisses the emphasis on the destruction of “those who plow trouble” in 4:8–9. 67 The tension this creates with 4:19–21, when addressed at all, has almost always been resolved by downplaying or ignoring the universality of the destruction in the vision, rather than by attempting to explain away the contrast in 4:7–11. Despite the widespread assumption that the vision is the centerpiece of Eliphaz’s speech, most acknowledge that 4:7–11

B. The Friends’ Responses to the Vision

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There is simply no reconciling this with 4:17–21. Where the vision emphatically affirms that any can perish, Eliphaz just as emphatically insists that only the wicked perish. Indeed, where the visionary claims that he has heard this pessimistic account of human fate from an apparently divine ‫ רוח‬and ‫קול‬, Eliphaz declares that “I have seen” that God’s ‫ רוח‬brings destruction upon the guilty, whose ‫ קול‬is stilled. If the vision did not immediately follow this contrast between the innocent and the guilty, how could we conclude otherwise than that Eliphaz directly repudiates it? Indeed, if 4:12–21 really is Eliphaz’s vision, why would he introduce it only after dismissing its conclusions in the preceding verses? The vision is not merely uncharacteristic of the speech in which it appears; it is directly contradicted by its context.68 What follows in ch. 5 also appears to reject the vision’s conclusion, or at least to reframe it. Commentators have long struggled to understand the transition to 5:1, in which Eliphaz dismisses the value of any appeal to the holy ones: “Call now, is there anyone who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?”69 Nothing in Job 3 as we have it reflects such an appeal, and it is especially odd that Eliphaz dismisses one directly after reporting his own revelation from an apparently divine “spirit.”70 The verse has therefore frequently been dismissed as a secondary gloss, or transferred to precede 5:8.71 As noted in the Introduction, however, 5:1 does not read as a gloss, and a transfer obscures the parallel structure in 4:7–11 and 5:1–5.72 As Witte observed, both passages begin with parallel appeals to Job (‫ זכר־נא‬in 4:7 and ‫ קרא־נא‬in 5:1), both continue with a reference to what Eliphaz has himself seen (‫ ;ראיתי‬4:8, 5:3), and both conclude with an account of the destruction of the wicked (4:8–11) and the fool (5:2–5).73 It is not 5:1 that is awkward, therefore, but 4:12–21, which interrupts this parallel with its own very different form and contents. In fact, like 4:7–11, 5:1–5 also reads more naturally as insists on a clear contrast between the preservation of the innocent and the destruction of the wicked (e.g. FOHRER, Hiob, 138, 141; HABEL, Job, 125–26; CLINES, Job, 1.124–28; EBACH, Streiten, 1.51–53, 58; BALENTINE, Job, 107; SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 54; LONGMAN, Job, 117). That 4:19–21 denies any such restrictions on who can be destroyed has been shown in Chapter One, Section B.II above. 68 Cf. e.g. WÜRTHWEIN, Wort und Existenz, 233–39; MAAG, Hiob, 140–43; J. C. L. GIBSON, Eliphaz, 268; WITTE, Leiden, 69–75; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 149 n. 5, 188, 194–99; TUR-SINAI, Job, 88–91; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 245–246. 69 Cf. HABEL, Job, 130. 70 TUR-SINAI, Job, 92; GINSBERG, Patient, 99; SMITH, Vision, 455–56; GREENSTEIN, Skin, 68; idem, Extent, 246, 247–48; GRUBER, Human and Divine, 93. 71 It is considered secondary by, e.g., SIEGFRIED, Job, 3; GILLISCHEWSKI, Die erste Elifaz-Rede, 293; DRIVER AND GRAY, Job, 49; FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 324, 355–57. It is transferred to follow 5:7 by, e.g., DHORME, Job, 62–63; DE WILDE, Hiob, 110, 112; J. GRAY, Job, 160–61. 72 See discussion in the Introduction, Section A.III. 73 WITTE, Leiden, 72, followed by NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, 18, 20–21.

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a counterpoint to the vision than as an expression of agreement with it. It also repeats several terms from the vision, but applies them to Job and the fool: 5:1–5 (Eliphaz)

4:14, 18–21 (The Vision)

1

14

Call now, is there anyone who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn? 2 For vexation slays the fool, and jealousy kills the naive. 3 I have seen a fool take root, but suddenly I cursed his dwelling. 4 His children are far from safety, they are crushed in the gate, and there is no one to deliver them. 5 That which he harvests the hungry eat, and even from the thorns they take it; and the thirsty pant after their wealth.

Dread has befallen me, and trembling, and made all my bones shake.…. 18 If he does not trust his servants, and to his messengers he imputes error, 19 how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust? They are crushed before the moth, 20 from morning to evening they are destroyed; they perish forever without notice. 21 Is not their cord pulled up within them? They die, and not in wisdom.

‫ קרא־נא הישׁ עונך‬1 ‫ואל־מי מקדשׁים תפנה‬ ‫ כי־לאויל יהרג־כעשׂ‬2 ‫ופתה תמית קנאה‬ ׁ◌‫ אני־ראיתי אויל משׁריש‬3 ‫ואקוב נוהו פתאם‬ ‫ ירחקו בניו מישׁע‬4 ‫וידכאו בשׁער ואין מציל‬ ‫ אשׁר קצירו רעב יאכל‬5 ‫ואל־מצנים יקחהו‬ ‫ושׁאף צמים חילם‬

‫ פחד קראני ורעדה‬14 …‫ורב עצמותי הפחיד‬ ‫ הן בעבדיו לא יאמין‬18 ‫ובמלאכיו ישׂים תהלה‬ ‫ אף שׁכני בתי־חמר‬19 ‫אשׁר־בעפר יסודם‬ ‫ידכאום לפני־עשׁ‬ ‫ מבקר לערב יכתו‬20 ‫מבלי משׂים לנצח יאבדו‬ ‫ הלא־נסע יתרם בם‬21 ‫ימותו ולא בחכמה‬

The use of ‫ קרא‬in 5:1 is different than that in 4:14, meaning “call” instead of “befall,” but the use of ‫ מות‬and ‫ דכא‬is more significant, as these terms were applied to humanity as a whole in 4:19–21, but by Eliphaz only to the fool and his children. That Eliphaz allows such a fate only for the wicked is confirmed by the rest of the chapter, where he goes on to affirm that God raises up the lowly (5:9–16) and blesses those who accept his discipline (5:17–27). It is only in 5:6–7 that Eliphaz may concede something to the vision, but even there he by no means embraces it: For trouble [‫ ]און‬does not come out of the dust [‫]עפר‬, nor does misfortune [‫ ]עמל‬sprout from the ground; 7 Human beings are born to [or: beget; ‫ ]יולד‬misfortune [‫]עמל‬ and the sons of Resheph fly high. 6

This is Eliphaz’s only clear depiction of human beings in general, and it is linked to the image in 4:19 by the term ‫עפר‬, “dust.” It also repeats the terms “trouble” (‫ )און‬and “misfortune” (‫ )עמל‬from 4:8. But is the point the same as

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121

there, or different? Much hangs on the pointing of the verb ‫ יולד‬in 5:7. In the MT it is pointed as a passive, ‫יוּלָּד‬, which suggests that trouble is indeed inherent to human life.74 If so, then this may be an admission that anyone can suffer, which could fit the subsequent reference to divine discipline in 5:17. Even if that is the point, it is only a minor concession to the vision, as there is no admission that any could perish, only that all suffer “trouble.” Many others, however, consider the MT pointing mistaken in 5:7, as it leaves the contrast with 5:6 awkward, may contradict 4:7–8, and implies that Eliphaz agrees with Job, who has already said that he was born to trouble (‫ ;עמל‬3:10). To claim that trouble does not come from the dust in 5:6 implies that it is not natural, that it is not inherent to creation. This seems a deliberate caution to the depiction of all human beings as founded “in the dust” and (therefore) quickly destroyed in 4:19–21, so why would Eliphaz go on in the next verse to admit that nevertheless “trouble” is inborn?75 Moreover, this is not the only place Eliphaz uses this image. At the end of a lengthy depiction of the fate of the wicked in 15:20–35, Eliphaz concludes his whole second speech with the affirmation that “They conceive trouble [‫ ]עמל‬and bring forth [‫ ;ילד‬Qal] misfortune [‫ ]און‬and their womb prepares deceit” (15:35). In line with this and 4:8, therefore, ‫ יולד‬in 5:7 is commonly repointed as a Hiphil, ‫יוֹלִד‬, “they beget misfortune.”76 In that case, Eliphaz’s point is not that human beings in general suffer misfortune, but just the opposite: Misfortune is not natural, but results from human choices.77 Therefore, at most these two verses concede to the vision that trouble can befall anyone, but on no account do they imply that anyone can be destroyed, and they may well be a direct rejoinder to the vision’s conclusion that any can perish.78 Regardless, the next 74

The MT pointing is maintained by, e.g., POPE, Job, 40; FOHRER, Hiob, 132; BALENJob, 114; J. GRAY, Job 159; BURNIGHT, Job 5:7, 93. 75 Note that even the OG uses ἀλλά to mark the transition between 5:6–7, though it maintains a passive verb, γεννᾶται (noted by CLINES, Job, 1.142); WITTE, Leiden, 72–73, recognizes this tension in the MT, without seeing it as a response to the vision. 76 E.g. BUDDE, Hiob, 22; DUHM, Hiob, 32 (who strikes 5:6–7 as secondary); DHORME, Job, 161; WEISER, Hiob, 57; HESSE, Hiob 57 (but cf. 52), TERRIEN, Job, 944; GINSBERG, Patient 96; GORDIS, Job, 55; CLINES, Job, 1.116; WITTE, Leiden, 72, 32. 77 The second half of 5:7 is obscure, reading literally “and [or: as] the sons of Resheph fly high.” This could imply inevitability, or perhaps the chthonic origin of trouble. The god Resheph is associated with plague (esp. Deut 32:24; Hab 3:5; cf. also EA 35.13–14, 36–37; KTU 1.14 i.18–19; LIPIŃSKI, Resheph, 115–18), but a link to the underworld is less certain (cf. FULCO, Resheph, 1–31; LIPIŃSKI, Resheph, 29–30, 31–45, 161–221). Resheph was sometimes identified with Nergal, who was also king of the underworld, but it is unclear if Resheph himself ever played such a role. Most recently, BURNIGHT, Job 5:7, 77–94, suggests that 5:7b be read “and the sons of Resheph exalt gloom,” a challenge to 3:3–10. 78 DUHM, Hiob, 32, recognizes the contradiction between 5:6–7 and 4:19–21, and therefore considers 5:6–7 secondary. Cf. also WÜRTHWEIN, Wort und Existenz, 235; MAAG, Hiob, 140–143; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 188, 197–199 TINE,

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verse urges Job to turn to God (5:8), and the rest of the speech promises blessing if he does so (5:9–27). Whatever the origins of evil, Eliphaz does not believe it poses any final threat to the righteous. Indeed, though God may “reprove” anyone (5:17), Eliphaz insists that those who do not reject his “discipline” are protected and blessed and will by no means die, 5:20–21: In famine he will redeem you from death [‫]מות‬, and in war from the power of the sword. 21 You will be hidden amidst the scourge of the tongue, and not fear [‫ ]ירא‬destruction that comes. 20

Despite the visionary’s own dread and the conclusion that any can die without wisdom, Eliphaz contrasts the fool who is killed by vexation with the pious who will not die, and has no reason to fear. Throughout the whole speech, therefore, it is assumed that there are two paths human beings can choose: wickedness, foolishness and craftiness lead to death, but those who are innocent, seek God, and do not reject his discipline are preserved and blessed. Even if they suffer “trouble” or “discipline,” it is only temporary and poses no ultimate threat to the pious, while the wicked cannot escape it. This is nothing less than a sustained rejection of the universal threat of destruction emphasized in 4:19–21, and assumes the very contrast between the righteous and the wicked that 4:17–19 calls into question. While Eliphaz makes extensive use of the vision’s language, he does so to repudiate its claims, not to advance them. Far from the theological center of Eliphaz’s speech, the vision disrupts and obscures its otherwise consistent picture. It is much more easily read as the object of his critique than the basis for his argument, and the same is also true in his second speech, in ch. 15. II. The Vision in Eliphaz’s Second Speech The contradiction between the vision and Eliphaz’s anthropology is even clearer in ch. 15. Here again he uses the language of 4:12–16 only to describe Job and the wicked, never himself, but he also quotes 4:17–19 at length in 15:14–16. Most have assumed that he does so because he agrees with its pessimistic view of human nature, but this very quotation is blended with several significant expressions drawn from Job’s speeches: 15:14–16 (Eliphaz)

4:17–19 (The Vision)

7:17 (Job)

14

17

What is a mortal, that you make so much of him, that you set your heart on him?

What is a mortal, that he can be clean, that one born of a woman can be righteous? 15 If he does not trust his holy ones,

Can a mortal be righteous before God? Can a human being be pure before their maker? 18 If he does not trust his servants,

14:1 (Job) A human, born of a woman, few of days and full of turmoil,

123

B. The Friends’ Responses to the Vision and the heavens are not pure in his sight, 16 how much less one who is abhorrent and corrupt, a man who drinks injustice like water!

and to his messengers he imputes error, 19 how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust? They are crushed before a moth.

‫מה־אנושׁ כי־יזכה‬. 14 ‫וכי־יצדק ילוד אשׁה‬ ‫ לא יאמין‬79‫ הן בקדשׁיו‬15 ‫ושׁמים לא־זכו בעיניו‬ ‫ אף כי־נתעב ונאלח‬16 ‫אישׁ־שׁתה כמים עולה‬

‫ האנושׁ מאלוה יצדק‬17 ‫אם מעשׂהו יטהר־גבר‬ ‫ הן בעבדיו לא יאמין‬18 ‫ובמלאכיו ישׂים תהלה‬ ‫ אף שׁכני בתי־חמר‬19 ‫אשׁר־בעפר יסודם‬ ‫ידכאום לפני־עשׁ‬

9:30–31 (Job) 30

If I wash myself with soap and purify my hands with lye, 31 then you plunge me into the pit, and my own clothes abhor me.

‫ מה־אנושׁ כי תגדלנו‬7:17 ‫וכי־תשׁית אליו לבך‬ ‫ אדם ילוד אשׁה‬14:1 ‫קצר ימים ושׂבע־רגז‬ ‫ אם־התרחצתי במו־שׁלג‬9:30 ‫והזכותי בבר כפי‬ ‫ אז בשׁחת תטבלני‬31 ‫ותעבוני שׂלמותי‬

80

The overall structure of 15:14–16 plainly reflects 4:17–19. Each questions the righteousness (‫ )צדק‬and purity (‫ טהר‬in 4:17b; ‫ זכה‬in 15:14a) of a “mortal” (‫)אנושׁ‬, affirms that God does not trust (‫ )לא יאמין‬his own servants or holy ones (Qere), and compares this (‫ אף‬...‫ )הן‬to the still lower status of humanity.81 But the question in 15:14 is now structured according to 7:17, repeating ‫ וכי‬...‫מה־אנושׁ כי‬, “What is a mortal that… that….” The expression occurs only one other place in the Hebrew Bible, in Ps 8:5[4], which Job seems to parody.82 For Job, this reworking of the Psalm serves to critique God for obsessive attention to the faults of short-lived mortals (7:17–21), and it will be argued below that Job’s very insistence that God does not forgive is itself a reflection of the vision. For it not only maintains a similar view of human nature as 4:19–21, but also follows shortly after an explicit complaint of terrifying “dreams” and “visions” in 7:14 (‫ ;חזינות‬cf. 4:13).83 79

Following the Qere. Maintaining the Kethib; cf. SEOW, Job, 569–570. 81 That Eliphaz is quoting from 4:17–19 is also given away by the fact that he omits the references to “God” and “their maker” from 4:17, yet still refers to “his holy ones” in 15:15 (GREENSTEIN, Extent, 255). That 15:14–16 quotes or repeats 4:17–19 is universally accepted (e.g. DHORME, Job, 213; FOHRER, Hiob, 271; WEISER, Hiob, 115–16; HESSE, Hiob, 109; HORST, Hiob, 225–26; HABEL, Job, 255; CLINES, Job 1.352–54; BALENTINE, Job, 234–35; LONGMAN, Job, 227; SEOW, Job 702, 714–15). 82 This is also widely recognized, e.g. DHORME, Job, 213; HESSE, Hiob, 109; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 250–51; BALENTINE, Job, 234–35; FISHBANE, Job, 93–95; KYNES, My Psalm, 63–79. The latter suggests that Eliphaz’s reference to “the heavens” may further look back to Ps 8:6[5] directly (KYNES, My Psalm, 71–72). 83 Also recognized by KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 172. 80

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For Eliphaz to begin his paraphrase of 4:17–19 with a quotation from this context effectively blends the vision with Job’s own reflections on its message, and the remainder of 15:14–16 goes on to draw additional expressions from Job’s complaints in chs. 9 and 14, beginning with one “born of a woman” (‫ )ילוד אשׁה‬in 15:14b, taken from Job’s most recent complaint in 14:1.84 Ginsberg highlights the latter parallel, noting that ‫ ילוד אשׁה‬is found only in these two passages and the further paraphrase of the vision in 25:4b.85 The likelihood of an allusion is strengthened by the context in 14:1–4, in which Job defends the same view of human frailty emphasized in the vision itself: 1

A human, born of a woman, few of days and full of turmoil, 2 he comes up like a flower and withers, he flees like a shadow and does not stay. 3 Do you set your eyes on such a one, and bring me into judgment with you? 4 Who can bring the pure from the impure? No one.

By using an expression from this depiction, Eliphaz seems to acknowledge the parallel between Job’s point and the vision’s, that short-lived human beings cannot stand before God.86 Finally, 15:15–16 blends 4:18–19 with Job’s complaint in 9:30–31 that Job cannot “purify” (‫ )זכך‬himself because God makes him “abhorrent” (‫)תעב‬.87 There again he builds on the vision to insist that none can be righteous because God will not allow them to be, but Eliphaz turns it back into an accusation against Job. Taken as a whole, therefore, even Eliphaz’s one quotation of the vision blends it with key language from Job’s own complaints of human frailty and the inescapability of divine judgment. As Köhlmoos recognizes, “15:14–16 is more basically an examination of Job’s statements concerning anthropology than an exact citation of the vision.”88 Similarly, Habel notes that “Verses 14–16 are a subtle reformulation of 4:17–19 in terms of Job’s particular situation and preceding provocative statements.”89 Yet even this does not go far enough, underestimating the tension between 15:14–16 and Eliphaz’s clear

84 Link recognized by DHORME, Job, 213; HABEL, Job, 256; CLINES, Job, 1.353; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 250; GINSBERG, Patient, 102. 85 GINSBERG, Patient, 102. 86 GINSBERG, Patient, 102. 87 As HABEL, Job, 256, notes, ‫ זכך‬occurs in Job only in 9:30, 15:15, and 25:5, and else-

where in the Hebrew Bible only in Lam 4:7. ‫ תעב‬is more common, but only occurs in the book on the lips of Job (9:31; 19:19; 30:10). Parallel also noted by DHORME, Job, 214. 88 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 250, “15,14–16 ist wesentlich eher eine Auseinandersetzung mit Hiobs Aussagen zur Anthropologie als eine exakte Zitation der Vision.” 89 HABEL, Job, 255, cf. 256.

B. The Friends’ Responses to the Vision

125

dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked elsewhere.90 As the contexts from which Eliphaz draws this language confirm, it is Job who denies that God counts anyone righteous, not Eliphaz. In that light, it is too often overlooked how Eliphaz introduces this quotation in 15:12–13 with the expression “utter words from your mouth.” Bildad used almost the same formula to introduce a proverb in 8:10–11, but is here it refers to Job’s words91: 15:12–13 (Eliphaz)

8:10–11 (Bildad)

12

10

Why does your heart carry you away, and why do your eyes flash, 13 so that you turn your spirit against God, and utter words from your mouth?

‫ מה־יקחך לבך‬12 ‫ומה־ירזמון עיניך‬ ‫ כי־תשׁיב אל־אל רוחך‬13 ‫והצאת מפיך מלין‬

Will they not teach you and tell you and utter words from their hearts? 11 Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh? Can reeds thrive without water?

‫ הלא־הם יורוך יאמרו לך‬10 ‫ומלבם יוצאו מלים‬ ‫ היגאה־גמא בלא בצה‬11 ‫ישׂגה־אחו בלי־מים‬

Both Eliphaz and Bildad refer to uttering (‫ ;יצא‬Hiph) “words” (‫ מלין‬or ‫)מלים‬, “from” (‫ )מן‬a body part, the only difference being that Eliphaz refers explicitly to “your mouth,” while Bildad spoke of “their hearts.”92 That this is a citation formula in 8:10 is implied by its use to introduce what appears to be a traditional proverb in 8:11.93 Habel further argues that the whole of 8:8–22 is a prime example of an “appeal to ancient tradition,” a literary form he finds reflected in a number of passages in Job, Deuteronomy, Deutero-Isaiah and Jeremiah.94 “Utter words from their hearts” in 8:10 should therefore be under90

Which KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 251, admits. Noted by TORCZYNER, Hiob, 96–98; TUR-SINAI, Job, 250–251; followed by, e.g., GINSBERG, Patient, 102; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 252–255. 92 GINSBERG, Patient, 97, notes that the heart can also be understood as an organ of speech (e.g. Eccl 5:1; Prov 23:33; Ps 49:4), so Bildad’s expression is equivalent to Eliphaz’s. GREENSTEIN, Extent, 252–55; idem, Skin, 67, notes additional examples of quotations or direct speech introduced by similar references to one’s “mouth” (e.g. Ps 22:8–9[7– 8]; cf. 55:22[21]). He also suggests that Job 15:13a, ‫השיב רוח‬, is “a locution for speech” paralleled in 35:4, where the expression is ‫השיב מלין‬. 93 Similar images appear in Ps 1:1–5 and Jer 17:5–8. HABEL, Job, 169, notes that “A standard way of citing a traditional didactic saying is in the form of a rhetorical question” (and cf. GORDIS, Job, 521; for other examples, see GORDIS, Book of God, 177–181). 94 HABEL, Appeal, 253–272, esp. 254–56. He finds other examples in Job 20:4–29; Deut 4:32–35; 32:7–9; Isa 40:21–24; 46:8–11 (cf. 41:4; 45:18–23; 48:8–9; Jer 18:13–17). As he notes, each begins with an exhortation or question concerning ancient knowledge, then quotes a formulaic expression, then applies it to the issue at hand. He notes that Job parodies the form in 12:7–12, suggesting that the friends appeal to birds and beasts (266– 67). J. GRAY, Job, 187, also recognizes 8:10–11 as a citation. NEWSOM, Contest, 130–31, and GREENSTEIN, Skin, 70–72, emphasize that appeals to traditional proverbs are characteristic of the friends’ style. 91

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stood as a citation formula, not simply a generalized allusion to the teaching of the wise, and Eliphaz’s use of the same expression in 15:13 can be understood in the same way. In that case “words from your mouth” is no vague allusion to Job’s speeches in general, but an explicit introduction to the specific words that follow, which begin with a quotation from 7:17 and continue with a thorough blending of the vision’s language with Job’s own reflections on its implications. Job 15:14–16 is not, therefore, Eliphaz’s reaffirmation of the vision in response to Job’s speeches, nor is it a straightforward reflection of Eliphaz’s views. Instead, it is his summary of Job’s speeches, among which he apparently includes the vision.95 Eliphaz’s own response comes in 15:17–35, which he links not to a revelatory vision, but to the teaching of the ancestors: 17

I will explain to you; listen to me; what I have seen [‫ ]חזה‬I will recount – 18 What the wise have announced, and their ancestors have not hidden,96

Habel suggests that the use of ‫ חזה‬either alludes back to the vision, or attributes what follows to yet another vision.97 But what Eliphaz has to “recount” in the following passage is no new revelation; it is the same traditional view of the fate of the wicked that was already emphasized in 4:8–11 and 5:2–5.98 Nor can this be harmonized with the generalized destruction recounted in 4:19–21, as 15:20–35 by no means describes all human beings, but only he who “stretched out his hand against God, and vaunts himself against the Almighty” (15:25). Though Eliphaz no longer pairs this with a promise of restoration for the righteous, there can be no doubt that he still accepts that as a legitimate possibility, as his final speech returns to it in 22:21–30. As noted, Eliphaz even describes the wicked in 15:21 with three terms from the visionary’s experience in 4:12–16, “The sound [‫ ]קול‬of terrors [‫ ]פחדים‬in his ears [‫]אזן‬.”99 As Habel and Balentine note, the account of the wicked in 15:20–35 also draws a wide range of other terms from Job’s self95 The reference to “your spirit” (‫ )רוחך‬in 15:13a might also be meant to attribute the vision to Job’s own “spirit,” implicitly denying that it derives from any heavenly intermediary (contrast the use of ‫ רוח‬in 4:15). 96 The MT of 15:18b is problematic, ‫ולא כחדו מאבותם‬, “and they have not hidden from their ancestors.” With HABEL, Job, 247, and CLINES, Job, 1.342, I take the ‫ מ‬as originally an enclitic at the end of the verb: ‫ולא כחדום אבותם‬, “and their ancestors have not hidden.” Alternatively, GREENSTEIN, Skin, 65–66 n. 8, instead blames a ligatured ‫ נו‬at the end of ‫מאבותם‬, so that it originally read “have not hidden from our ancestors.” Either is possible. 97 HABEL, Job, 257. 98 As such, the use of ‫ חזה‬can more easily be read to contrast with the vision. Against Job’s “visions” (‫ )חזינות‬Eliphaz has “seen” (‫ )חזה‬that the ancestors are correct. 99 Eliphaz also applies two further terms from the visionary’s self-description to the wicked: the “face” of the wicked (15:27) and “the spirit of his [=God’s] mouth” (15:30).

B. The Friends’ Responses to the Vision

127

descriptions.100 As in chs. 4–5, here Eliphaz gives no ground to the vision’s conclusion that destruction falls indiscriminately on any mortal; it is only those who turn against God who must fear such a fate, not the entire human race. But by describing their fate with language from both the visionary’s and Job’s self-descriptions, Eliphaz links the two and implicitly rejects them together. This is by no means how he would describe his own experience. That Eliphaz contrasts his traditional view with the quotation of the vision in 15:14–16 is also implied by the first half of the speech, which directly challenges Job’s claims to exclusive divine knowledge in 15:2–8. It begins with a reference to Job’s ‫ דעת־רוח‬in 15:2, which is usually translated “windy knowledge,” but is probably a double entendre for “knowledge of the spirit.” This is supported by the parallel clause: Should the wise answer with windy knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind?

The “east wind” is not merely “hot air.”101 When ‫ קדים‬means “east wind,” it is generally associated with divine activity, usually to destructive ends.102 If Job’s arguments are wind, according to Eliphaz, they are a destructive wind that carries him, and perhaps others, away from God (cf. 15:4).103 That Eliphaz is rejecting Job’s access to exclusive revelation is confirmed by 15:7–8: 7

Are you the first human born? Were you brought forth before the hills? 8 Do you listen [‫ ]שׁמע‬in the council of God [‫?]בסוד אלוה‬ and limit wisdom to yourself?

The first verse may allude to traditions of the “primal man,” the first human being who is sometimes depicted as semi-divine (cf. Ezek 28; Gen 2–3), or to depictions of primordial wisdom (esp. Prov 8:25).104 This image may or may not imply hubris and judgment, as in Ezek 28 and Gen 2–3, but it is in any 100 HABEL, Job, 251; BALENTINE, Job, 239. Among those they list, cf. esp. ‫( חיל‬15:20; cf. ‫ חילה‬in 6:10); ‫( פחד‬15:21; 3:25); ‫( שׁוב‬from death; 15:22; 7:9–10); ‫( בעת‬15:24; 7:14; 9:34; 13:21); ‫( צר‬15:24; 7:11); ‫( תקף‬15:24; 14:20); ‫( גבר‬as a verb in 15:25; as a noun in 3:3; 23; 10:5; 14:14); ‫( שׁוא‬15:31; 7:3); ‫( גלמוד‬15:34; 3:7). 101 Contra HABEL, Job, 252, “Now Eliphaz implies that Job’s arguments are without substance, rising like ‘hot air’ from a bloated belly” (so also POPE, Job, 114; LONGMAN, Job, 224). 102 E.g. Job 27:21; Exod 10:13–14; 14:21; Ps 48:8[7]; Isa 27:8; Ezek 19:12; Hos 13:15; Jon 4:8; cf. FITZGERALD, East Wind. CLINES, Job, 1.346–47, recognizes that the wind here implies violence, not merely insubstantiality, but he overlooks the association with divine judgment. SEOW, Job, 710, sees an intensification from 15:2a to 15:2b. 103 Cf. Isa 2:6, which refers to illicit revelation “from the east” (‫ )מקדם‬that leads God’s people astray. J. GRAY, Job, 238, thinks ‫ קדים‬in 15:2 could refer to “inspiration.” 104 The latter is maintained by BALENTINE, Job, 263–64; the former by HABEL, Job, 253; CLINES, Job, 1.349–350; J. GRAY, Job, 239; SEOW, Job, 700–701; cf. CALLENDER, Primal Man, 606–625; MAY, King, 166–176.

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Chapter 2: The Vision in the First Two Speech Cycles

case a challenge to Job’s self-importance. The image in 15:8, however, draws on prophetic imagery, especially Jeremiah’s use of a similar question to condemn the prophets: “For who has stood in the council of YHWH [‫ ]בסוד יהוה‬to see and hear [‫ ]שׁמע‬his word?” (Jer 23:18; cf. 23:18–22). Some think Eliphaz could have that specific passage in view,105 which may also stand behind the vision itself, especially the reference to the word being “stolen to me” (Job 4:12; cf. Jer 23:30).106 Weinfeld suggests that the two images – to listen in on the divine council and to receive a “stolen” word – are related, both reflecting a motif of surreptitious acquisition of divine wisdom, and that Eliphaz appeals to this to dismiss Job’s vision.107 As he notes, Eliphaz’s rejection of Job’s exclusive knowledge is not balanced by a claim to himself provide it, but rather by another appeal to the wisdom of the ancestors in 15:9–11:108 9

What do you know that we do not know? What do you perceive that we do not? 10 With us are the gray-haired and aged, those older than your father. 11 Are the consolations of God too little for you, and a word spoken gently with you?109

Again, many commentators suggest that “the consolations of God” could allude to the vision, but it is difficult to imagine that 4:17–21 could in any sense be described as “consolations.”110 On the contrary, Eliphaz’s own assurances that the innocent do not perish (4:2–7; 5:8–27) are a much more fitting referent, especially following the reference to ancestral wisdom. In that case, 15:2–11 as a whole contrasts Eliphaz’s tradition with Job’s claims to exclusive divine knowledge.111 Therefore, when Eliphaz goes on to condemn the “words from your mouth [‫( ”]פיך‬15:13), followed by a paraphrase of the vision in Job’s own words, the natural conclusion should be that he attributes 105

Cf. BUDDE, Hiob, 78; TUR-SINAI, Job, 248; POPE, Job, 115; FOHRER, Hiob, 269; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 93; HARDING, Metaprophecy, 530–31; cf. J. GRAY, Job, 239. 106 See Chapter One, Section A. 107 WEINFELD, Partition, 223–24. 108 WEINFELD, Partition, 224–25. Even in Jeremiah’s case it is questionable whether his dismissal of standing in the divine council is based on a claim to have himself done so. Though Am 3:7 describes prophecy in this way, Jeremiah does not, introducing his own prophecies with other expressions, most often a reference to the “word of YHWH.” 109 Or: “because a secret [‫ ]לאט‬word is with you?” So GINSBERG, Patient, 101 n. k. 110 That 15:11 alludes to 4:12–21 is affirmed by, e.g., WEISER, Hiob, 114–15; FOHRER, Hiob, 270; JANZEN, Job, 116–17; HARTLEY, Job, 246; HABEL, Job, 254; J. GRAY, Job, 239–240; SEOW, Job, 701. DHORME, Job, 212, HORST, Hiob, 224–25, and CLINES, Job, 1.351–52, suggest that 15:11 also refers more broadly to the friends’ arguments as a whole, including the vision. 111 But this should not be understood to contrast mere “human” knowledge with “revelation” (contra GRUBER, Human and Divine, 88–102), as Eliphaz’s own views are themselves “the consolations of God.”

B. The Friends’ Responses to the Vision

129

the vision to Job. Eliphaz rejects both the vision itself and the claim to exclusive revelation that it represents – using it to condemn Job with his own words. In fact, Eliphaz plainly states his procedure in 15:6, “Your own mouth [‫ ]פיך‬condemns you, and not I; your own lips testify against you.” Eliphaz completes this accusation in 15:12–16, implying that both the vision and Job’s subsequent conclusions from it constitute a damning self-accusation.112 III. The Vision in the Other Speeches of the Friends Zophar’s speech in ch. 20 similarly combines a cluster of critical allusions to the vision with expressions drawn from Job’s speeches, in another warning that the wicked are destroyed.113 We have already seen that 20:2–3 probably parodies Job’s complaints, rather than reflecting Zophar’s own troubled state.114 If so, however, it derives two key terms from the vision to do it: “troubling thoughts” (‫ ;שׂעפים‬4:13) and a “spirit [‫ ]רוח‬from my understanding” (4:15).115 Zophar contrasts such sources of knowledge with primordial wisdom in 20:4–5: 4

Do you not know this from of old, since humanity was placed upon the earth, 5 that the rejoicing of the wicked is brief, and the joys of the godless are momentary?

The remainder of the chapter builds on this with an extended depiction of the fate of the wicked, inverting language both from Job’s speeches and from the vision in much the same way that 15:20–35 does. In particular, in 20:7–8 Zophar combines expressions from 4:13 and 4:20 with 7:14: 20:7–8 (Zophar)

4:13, 20 (The Vision)

7:14 (Job)

7

13

then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions,

Like his own dung he perishes forever; those who saw him say, “Where is he?” 8 Like a dream he flies away, and they do not find him; he is chased away like a vision of the night.

112

In troubling thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on mortals,… 20 From morning to evening they are destroyed; they perish forever without notice.

14:19c-20a (Job) you destroy the hope of a mortal. You prevail forever against him, and he passes away;

Cf. GREENSTEIN, Inspiration, 106. GREENSTEIN, Extent, 254–56, overlooks this, focusing only on 15:13–16 and 25:4– 6. It is briefly noted by SMITH, Vision, 456, and discussed by HOLBERT, Skies, 171–79, esp. 174–75, though the latter does not recognize that it implies that the vision is Job’s. 114 TUR-SINAI, Job, 308–310. 115 “Thoughts” (‫ )שׂעפים‬occurs only in 4:13 and 20:2 in the Hebrew Bible, though a related form (‫ )שׂרעפים‬appears in Ps 94:19; 139:23 (noted by POPE, Job, 36–37). 113

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‫ כגללו לנצח יאבד‬7 ‫ראיו יאמרו איו‬ ‫ כחלום יעוף ולא ימצאוהו‬8 ‫וידד כחזיון לילה‬

‫ בשׂעפים מחזינות לילה‬13 ...‫בנפל תרדמה על־אנשׁים‬ ‫ מבקר לערב יכתו‬20 ‫מבלי משׂים לנצח יאבדו‬

‫ וחתתני בחלמות‬7:14 ‫ומחזינות תבעתני‬ ‫ ותקות אנושׁ האבדת‬14:19c ‫ תתקפהו לנצח ויהלך‬20a

The use of ‫ לנצח‬with ‫ אבד‬occurs in Job only in 4:20, 14:19–20 and 20:7.116 Job and the vision both use it to describe the destruction of any “mortal,” whereas Zophar applies it to the wicked alone. The expression “vision of the night” (‫ )חזיון לילה‬further parallels 4:13, while plural forms of “a vision” (‫ )חזיון‬and “a dream” (‫ )חלום‬were used by Job in 7:14 to describe his own experience.117 Like Eliphaz, Zophar appears to be responding directly to the vision’s conclusion that anyone can perish by insisting that it is only “the wicked” who “perish forever.” That the wicked pass away like a dream and like a vision may also dismiss the revelatory value of such experiences, but in any case it furthers the contrast with 4:12–21. Holbert recognizes that this critiques the vision, but concludes that “Eliphaz is mocked as clearly as Job here.”118 Yet Holbert admits that this reuse of the vision’s language appears alongside numerous other allusions to Job’s words in Zophar’s speech, and no others to the friends’.119 For instance: 20:9 (Zophar)

7:8 (Job)

The eye that saw him will no longer, and his place will no longer behold him.

The eye that sees will not behold me, your eyes are on me, but I am no more.

‫עין שׁזפתו ולא תוסיף‬ ‫ולא־עוד תשׁורנו מקומו‬

‫לא־תשׁורני עין‬ ‫ראי עיניך בי ואינני‬

For Job, this was an expression of the brief span of all human life, particularly his own (7:6–10), but for Zophar it is an image of the swift destruction of the wicked. In this and other cases, Holbert rightly concludes that “Zophar skewers Job on his own words,”120 just as Eliphaz did in ch. 15. In that light, however, it is most likely that the allusions to 4:12–21 throughout ch. 20 are similarly intended. After all, the argument makes no sense as a response to 116

Cf. also Ps 9:7, 19[6, 18], which also combine the two to describe the well-deserved fate of the wicked and that which threatens the suffering. 117 ‫ חלום‬occurs in Job only in 7:14, 20:8 and 33:15; ‫ חזיון‬occurs only in those three plus 4:13. Other terms from the vision applied to the wicked in Zophar’s speech include: ‫עצמות‬ (20:11; 4:14), ‫( עפר‬20:11; 4:19), ‫( חלף‬20:24; 4:15). 118 HOLBERT, Skies, 175. 119 HOLBERT, Skies, 174–179, identifies “satirical” allusions to earlier speeches of Job in, among others, 20:9 (cf. 7:8), 20:11 (cf. 10:9), 20:25 (cf. 13:21), and 20:27 (cf. 16:18– 19). Also noted by SMITH, Vision, 456. Though Zophar may echo 15:20–26 in 20:23–25, this does not parody Eliphaz; it agrees with him. It is Job who applies such imagery to himself (6:4; 16:11–14; 19:6–8). Eliphaz, like Zophar, ascribes it only to the wicked. 120 HOLBERT, Skies, 175; cf. HABEL, Job, 315.

B. The Friends’ Responses to the Vision

131

Eliphaz, as Zophar’s conclusion directly parallels Eliphaz’s own in 4:7–11, 5:2–5 and 15:20–35, reaffirming his position that it is the wicked who “perish,” not all mortals. Like Eliphaz, Zophar condemns Job with a blend of his own words and expressions drawn from the visionary’s self-description, which seems to assume that the vision is Job’s. A similar pattern is also seen in Bildad’s first speech, where he asks, “How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind [‫ ?]רוח כביר‬Does God [‫ ]אל‬distort justice? Or does the Almighty distort the right [‫( ”?]צדק‬8:2–3). In light of Job’s interpretation in 7:17–21, this could be read to parody 4:17 – “Can a mortal be righteous [‫ ]צדק‬before [or more righteous than] God [‫ ”?]אלוה‬If so, then 8:2 again appears to attribute this directly to Job, referring to it as “the words of your mouth” and “a great wind.”121 This is supported by the remainder of the speech, which responds to Job – and the vision – just as Eliphaz did in chs. 4–5, by insisting on a straightforward dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked: “If your children sinned against him, then he delivered them into the hand of their transgression…. If you are pure and upright, then surely he will protect you and establish your righteous habitation” (8:4, 6). This both assumes that it is possible to be “pure and upright,” and insists that those who are will be blessed and upheld. Only the wicked are destroyed. Far from relying on the vision, Bildad contrasts “our days” with the more secure knowledge of the ancestors in 8:8–10: 8

Ask the first generation, and study what their ancestors searched out; 9 for we are of yesterday, and we do not know, for our days on earth are but a shadow. 10 Will they not teach you and tell you and utter words from their hearts?

We have already noted that this introduces a traditional proverb in 8:11, and the rest of the speech derives from it a further contrast between “the fate of all who forget God,” whose hope perishes (‫ ;אבד‬8:13), and that of the righteous, who will be “filled with laughter” (8:21).122 Once again, the speech as a

121

SMITH, Vision, 458, and GREENSTEIN, Extent, 257, suggest this. There is a small wrinkle in this distinction. GORDIS, Job, 521, and HABEL, Job, 171– 73, 177, note that the tradition invoked in 8:11 may refer to two types of plant: a withered one that represents the wicked, but also a prosperous one that represents the pious. The problem is that the description of the healthy plant seems to admit that even it can be destroyed: “If he is destroyed [‫ ]בלע‬from his place, then it will deny him, [saying,] ‘I have never seen you’” (8:18). Does this mean that Bildad implicitly accepts the vision’s conclusion that anyone can be destroyed? In light of the consistent contrast between the fates of the righteous and the wicked throughout ch. 8, this seems too much to read into so obscure a reference. The next verse is also obscure, “See, this is his happy [or: rotten?] way, and 122

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whole directly contrasts Job’s words, as “a great wind,” with a clear dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked, built on the sure knowledge of the ancestors.123 The implication is that Job’s rejection of the contrast between the fates of the righteous and the wicked is built on a claim to exclusive divine knowledge, which Bildad rejects just as Eliphaz and Zophar do.124 Zophar’s first speech comes to the same conclusion, but takes a different tack. It has already been noted how 11:10–11 responds to Job’s use of the vision’s imagery in 9:11–12. As in ch. 20, this describes God’s judgment with terms from Job’s and the visionary’s self-descriptions.125 Zophar again ties this to an explicit contrast between the righteous, who are blessed (11:13–19), and the wicked, who cannot escape (11:10–12, 20). But in 11:5–6a Zophar responds differently: “But that God would speak, and open his lips to you! He would declare to you the secrets of wisdom!” This presumably implies that God has not spoken to Job, which some have taken to imply that Job has not heard from God, but the friends have.126 Before this is taken as a counterargument to the vision’s attribution to Job, however, note that it is followed by an explicit denial of his ability to understand: “Can you find out the mystery of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven – what can you do? Deeper than Sheol – what can you know [‫”?]ידע‬ (11:7–8).127 As Habel notes, the final question may respond to Job’s claim to “know” (‫ )ידע‬in 9:2, which itself introduces a quotation of 4:17, as we will see.128 If so, however, then Zophar also implicitly rejects the vision, and with it Job’s claim to divine knowledge.129 The passage does not disprove that Job has had a vision; it dismisses that vision as illegitimate. from the dust others will spring up” (8:19), but the conclusion is unambiguous: “See, God does not reject the blameless, nor grasp the hand of evildoers” (8:20). 123 CAESAR, New Thesis, 436, 441, recognizes that Bildad rejects the vision in this speech, insisting instead on the wisdom of previous generations, but since he maintains the vision’s attribution to Eliphaz, he sees this as a point of disagreement between the friends. 124 Bildad’s second speech in ch. 18 does not feature any obvious allusions to the vision, but also insists that “the ungodly” and “those who forget God” (18:21) are destroyed. 125 This “echo” is emphasized by J. GRAY, Job, 210. POPE, Job, 55, doubts that this “takes up Job’s words to turn them back at him, for Job has acknowledged God’s power and man’s inability to oppose him,” but the conclusions Job and Zophar draw from God’s supremacy are radically different. 126 So HABEL, Job, 204. 127 HABEL, Job, 204, thinks 11:6 claims esoteric knowledge on Zophar’s part, revealing “secrets of wisdom” to Job. But 11:6c does not specify those secrets, and it is not necessary to assume that Zophar himself knows them; 11:6 only assures Job that some mysteries are beyond him. 128 HABEL, Job, 208. 129 WITTE, Leiden, 66, thinks 11:6–9 is secondary, but in that case the potential allusion to the vision in 11:10–11 would have originally followed immediately after the wish that God would speak, so Zophar would still be responding to Job’s use of the vision.

C. Job’s Allusions to and Reuse of the Vision

133

Therefore throughout the first and second speech cycles, each of the friends responds to the vision more or less directly. Not only do none of them apply its language to themselves, but all three reject its message in deference to the traditional dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked. Up through ch. 20, none of the friends links the vision to Eliphaz, but several of their speeches blend its language with comparable expressions from Job’s speeches, reusing both the visionary’s and Job’s self-descriptions in accounts of the fate of the wicked. Eliphaz himself even introduces an extended quotation from the vision as “words from your mouth,” combining 4:17–19 with several expressions drawn from Job’s own interpretations of the vision in chs. 7, 9 and 14. Far from embracing this vision, Eliphaz and his friends consistently link its imagery to Job, and directly repudiate it.

C. Job’s Allusions to and Reuse of the Vision C. Job’s Allusions to and Reuse of the Vision

The vision’s literary form and vocabulary already tie it very strongly to Job’s perspective, and several of the friends’ speeches blend its imagery with language from Job’s own complaints of indiscriminate condemnation, human frailty and sudden destruction. As we now turn to consider Job’s speeches themselves, we will find that these linkages are not random, as each of those complaints can themselves be seen as interpretations of the vision, to which Job himself alludes repeatedly throughout the first speech cycle. Greenstein notes that Job regularly affirms both of the vision’s primary conclusions: 1. that all are judged inadequate in God’s sight, and 2. that human beings quickly perish.130 This conclusion must be modified in light of the ambiguity in 4:17–19b and the possibility that 4:19c–21 already expresses the visionary’s own interpretation, but Greenstein is correct that Job repeatedly builds on the vision’s message. Job not only describes his own experience using expressions drawn from 4:12–16, he also accuses God of injustice using imagery similar to 4:17–21. He may even claim the vision as his own in 6:10, 7:13–15 and possibly 12:4. Though Job also finds the vision deeply troubling, he never dismisses it. Instead, it forms the basis of his argument, confirming his friends’ pattern of eliding its language with Job’s own. I. The Vision in Job 6–7 We have already noted how Zophar blends 7:13–14 with 4:13 to describe the wicked. This is no coincidence, as 7:13–15 itself closely parallels 4:13–14: 130 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 249, cf. 249–251; the first is reflected in, e.g., 7:17–21, 9:2–4, 14–16, 20–21, 28–35; 10:6–7, 14–15, 12:16–25; 14:15–19; the second is seen in 6:11–13; 7:1–10; 9:11–12, 17–19, 25–26; 10:9–11, 20–22; 14:1–2, 10–14, 19–22.

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7:13–15 (Job)

4:13–14 (The Vision)

13

13

When I said, “My couch will comfort me, my bed will ease my complaint,” 14 then you [=God] frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, 15 so that my throat prefers strangling, death more than my bones.

‫ כי־אמרתי תנחמני‬13 ‫ערשׂי ישׂא בשׂיחי משׁכבי‬ ‫ וחתתני בחלמות‬14 ‫ומחזינות תבעתני‬ ‫ ותבחר מחנק נפשׁי‬15 ‫מות מעצמותי‬

In troubling thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on mortals. 14 Dread has befallen me, and trembling, and made all my bones shake.

‫ בשׂעפים מחזינות לילה‬13 ‫בנפל תרדמה על־אנשׁים‬ ‫ פחד קראני ורעדה‬14 ‫ורב עצמותי הפחיד‬

Job uses the same expression ‫ מחזינות‬as 4:13, and while the preposition ‫מן‬ must be translated differently here, in both cases the point is that these “visions” cause “troubling thoughts” and “dread” (4:13–14) or “fear” and “terror” (7:14).131 Both texts also refer to “my bones” (‫)עצמותי‬, an expression that occurs only in the vision and Job’s speeches in the book. If Clines and Cotter are correct that 4:13b is epexegetical, then both texts also contrast the normal expectation of sleep with the visions that keep the speaker awake.132 Despite this, most who acknowledge the parallel conclude that Job contrasts his own nightmares with Eliphaz’s vision. As Seow puts it: “Eliphaz had earlier spoken of his awesome encounter amid visions of the night and how the experience had terrified him (4:13–14). But that nocturnal experience turned out to be revelatory, while Job’s experiences of terrible dreams and visions are sheer torment. Indeed, they manifest divine hostility.”133 As we have already seen, however, 4:12–16 itself also implies “divine hostility,” so this is merely another parallel between the two depictions. To support the claim that 7:13–14 refers only to “fever dreams,”134 some appeal to 7:4–5: 4

When I lie down I say, “When shall I rise?” The night drags on, and I am full of restlessness until twilight. 5 My flesh [‫ ]בשׂרי‬is clothed with maggots and clods of dust [‫;]עפר‬135 my skin hardens, then breaks out.

131

Parallel noted by, e.g., SMITH, Vision, 456; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 248. Cf. CLINES, Byronic Suggestion, 745–47; COTTER, Job 4–5, 181–82. Neither considers this parallel. 133 SEOW, Job, 497; similarly EHRLICH, Traum, 145–46; HABEL, Job, 163; CLINES, Job, 1.191; EBACH, Streiten, 1.82; NOTTER, Traumverständnis, 62. 134 E.g. WEISER, Hiob, 63; HESSE, Hiob, 71. 135 Following the Qere. 132

C. Job’s Allusions to and Reuse of the Vision

135

Even if 7:13–14 is linked to 7:4–5, however, the latter also parallels the visionary’s inability to sleep, and repeats “my flesh” (‫ )בשׂרי‬from 4:13 and “dust” (‫ )עפר‬from 4:19. Job may add an allusion to physical illness not present in 4:13–14, but this by no means proves that the “visions” in 7:13–14 are nothing more than nightmares. On the contrary, Job’s use of ‫ חזינות‬in 7:14 retains the same associations with divine activity or theophany that it did in 4:13, as on Job’s lips the root ‫ חזה‬always refers to seeing God.136 This is confirmed in 7:14, where Job’s complaint that “you [Sg.] terrify me with visions” plainly refers to God as the source of the visions, since God is the addressee throughout 7:12–21.137 Moreover, the claim that 4:12–16 is revelatory while 7:4–5 and 7:13–14 are not ignores both the subversive elements of the vision itself, and the broader shape of ch. 7, which builds on the message in 4:17–21 extensively.138 In ch. 7 Job also laments the shortness of human life, but personalizes it: “My days are faster than a weaver's shuttle, and come to the end of hope” (7:6).139 He also admits that none is considered righteous in 7:17–21, but in this case he goes further. Beginning with his famous parody of Ps 8, Job concludes that this universal condemnation is not due to inherent human sin, but to God’s own obsessive attention to human imperfections: 7:17–21 (Job)

Ps 8:4–6[3–5]

17

3

What is a mortal, that you make so much of him, that you set your heart on him? 18 You visit him every morning, and test him every moment. 19 How long? Will you not turn your gaze from me, and let me alone until I swallow my spittle? 20 If I sin, what do I do to you, Watcher of humanity? Why have you made me your target? Why have I become a burden to myself? 21 Why do you not pardon my transgression, and pass over my iniquity? For now I will lie in the dust; you will search for me, but I will not be.

136

When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; 4 what is a mortal, that you remember him, a human being that you care for him? 5 You made him a little lower than God, and crowned him with glory and honor.

19:26, 27; 23:9; 24:1; 27:12. That is, the singular “you” in 7:14 cannot be taken to refer to Eliphaz and his vision. 138 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 250–51. J. GRAY, Job, 168, also recognizes that ch. 7 is “reminiscent” of 4:12–21, without admitting that this supports an attribution of the vision to Job. 139 ‫תקוה‬, “hope,” can also mean “thread,” a striking double-entendre (HABEL, Job, 159). The shortness of human life is also emphasized throughout 7:6–10, 12, 16, 21; cf. 4:19–21. 137

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‫ מה־אנושׁ כי תגדלנו‬17 ‫וכי־תשׁית אליו לבך‬ ‫ ותפקדנו לבקרים‬18 ‫לרגעים תבחננו‬ ‫ כמה לא־תשׁעה ממני‬19 ‫לא־תרפני עד־בלעי רקי‬ ‫ חטאתי מה אפעל לך נצר האדם‬20 ‫למה שׂמתני למפגע לך‬ ‫ואהיה עלי למשׂא‬ ‫ ומה לא־תשׂא פשׁעי‬21 ‫ותעביר את־עוני‬ ‫כי־עתה לעפר אשׁכב‬ ‫ושׁחרתני ואינני פ‬

‫ כי־אראה שׁמיך מעשׂי אצבעתיך‬4 ‫ירח וכוכבים אשׁר כוננתה‬ ‫ מה־אנושׁ כי־תזכרנו‬5 ‫ובן־אדם כי תפקדנו‬ ‫ ותחסרהו מעט מאלהים‬6 ‫וכבוד והדר תעטרהו‬

In 7:17–18 Job turns the psalmist’s surprise at the exaltation of humanity into a lament over the inescapability of divine surveillance.140 It should not be assumed that Job’s reversal of the psalm is a rejection of it.141 Job’s complaint, just like the psalmist’s praise, is addressed to God, and may well imply that the psalm’s more exalted image of humanity ought to be true, even though his present experience calls it into question. Nevertheless, the reality Job describes is much more pessimistic and entirely in line with the conclusions in 4:17–21, though he uses different language. Human beings are not exalted, but lowly and quickly pass away. God may lift them up, but only to subject them to scrutiny, refusing to pardon their imperfections. Unlike the open-ended ambiguity of the vision itself, Job explicitly concludes that human righteousness before God is impossible, because God does not forgive. But this assumes rather than rejects the vision’s emphasis on divine mistrust and human lowliness. 140 Job parallels both the expression ‫ כי‬...‫ מה־אנושׁ כי‬and the exact form ‫תפקדנו‬, maintaining the 2nd person address and the energic-‫ נ‬form of the 3rd person pronominal suffix (which is also used in the first verb in each passage: ‫ תגדלנו‬in Job 7:17a and ‫ תזכרנו‬in Ps 8:5a[4a]). That Job alludes to Ps 8 here is widely accepted, cf. esp. FISHBANE, Job, 87–89; PYEON, Intertextuality, 135–38; BALENTINE, What are Human Beings, 259–278, esp. 262– 64; KYNES, My Psalm, 63–79. Though VAN LEEUWEN, Psalm 8.5, 205–15, and SCHNIERINGER, Psalm 8, 432–33, 503, dismiss the link, the combination of structural and lexical parallels is too close to be a coincidence. Contra ESLINGER, Inner-Biblical, 55–56, if the two passages are linked, it is much less likely that the Psalm would allude to Job’s complaint to praise God, than that Job would reverse the Psalm’s praise to complain. 141 KYNES, My Psalm, 71, suggests that: “Job’s parody of Psalm 8 and his other parodies throughout the dialogue are intended for rhetorical effect, not to reject the psalms or the God they describe, but to break through God’s apparent injustice to the just God that Job believes resides behind it” (cf. 69–71; cf. also FREVEL, Menschenwürde, 467–497; SCHMID, Schriftdiskussion, 258–260). The point is debatable. It is also possible, as HABEL, Job, 154, suggests, that, “with God as his enemy and spy, Job’s cries are tantamount to screams of defiant accusation rather than bold assertions of human misery designed to evoke divine sympathy and saving intervention.”

C. Job’s Allusions to and Reuse of the Vision

137

Eliphaz confirms this link by quoting from 7:17 in direct connection with the vision in 15:14, attributing both to Job. In that light, the fact that Job’s complaint of terrifying visions in 7:13–15 is immediately followed by this account of divine surveillance is again no coincidence. Job alludes to 4:13–14 not to contrast his nightmares with Eliphaz’s vision, but because Job’s complaint and the vision’s message are all bound up together. Given that 4:12–16 is itself reported with the same style of first-person self-description that Job also employs throughout ch. 7, Job’s agreement with the vision’s pessimistic anthropology in 7:17–21 strongly implies that the “visions” referred to in 7:13–14 are none other than those reported in 4:13–14. That is, Job not only accepts the vision’s conclusion that none is considered righteous, and bitterly laments it, but he even claims the vision itself as his own.142 The same may also be implied by 6:10, where Job affirms that “I have not hidden [‫כחד‬, Pi] the words [‫ ]אמרים‬of the Holy One.” The NRSV and a number of others translate ‫“ כחד‬denied,”143 but such a sense is unparalleled and both other occurrences of the Piel in Job refer to concealing words (15:18; 27:11).144 Habel recognizes this, but seeks to avoid the association with revelation by translating ‫ אמרים‬as “ordinances” or “decrees” and concluding that Job “will not ‘conceal’ the truth; that is, he will expose the truth about ‘the

142

PYEON, Intertextuality, 128–130, notes that the term translated “burden” in 7:20, ‫משׂא‬, commonly refers to a prophetic oracle or its exposition (e.g. 2 Kgs 9:25; 2 Chr 24:27; Isa 13:1; Ezek 12:10; Nah 1:1; Hab 1:1; Zech 9:1; Mal 1:1; but cf. also Prov 30:1; 31:1). Pyeon takes this as a double entendre, which may imply “that Job’s honest confrontation with his current disaster is about to bring a new light of exposition about divine intervention in his plight” (129–130). If 7:13–15 has the vision in view, however, a double entendre on ‫ משׂא‬in 7:20 could instead be another allusion to it, and could be translated: “Why have I become an oracle against myself?” This follows the MT, of which most MSS read ‫ עלי‬here (as do the Vulgate, Targums and Peshitta), though the OG and a few Heb MSS have instead “to you,” and the rabbis identified the MT as a theological emendation (tiqqune sopherim), meant to eliminate the suggestion that anything could be a burden to God (cf. e.g. SEOW, Job, 510–11). Jeremiah 23:33–38 plays off the two meanings of ‫משׂא‬ in a critique of false prophecy, and Lam 2:14 refers to “false and deceptive visions [‫”]חזה‬ and “false and misleading oracles [‫]משׂא‬.” Given the indications of deception in Job 4:12– 16, could 7:20 allude to the same? 143 E.g. POPE, Job, 48, GORDIS, Job, 64, 72–73; WEISER, Hiob, 55, 58–59; cf. DE WILDE, Hiob, 122–23; CLINES, Job, 1.156; LONGMAN, Job, 133, 139. 144 GINSBERG, Patient, 99, DHORME, Job, 81–82, HABEL, Job, 140, 147, HORST, Hiob, 105–6, BALENTINE, Job, 126, and SEOW, Job, 459, 474–75, note that ‫ כחד‬normally means “hide” or “conceal,” not “deny” (cf. e.g. Gen 47:18; Jos 7:19; 1 Sam 3:17–18; Ps 40:11[10]; Jer 38:14; HALOT 1.469). HESSE, Hiob, 62, translates “verborgen gehalten,” though he marks 6:10c as secondary and does not discuss it (cf. 66–67). FOHRER, Hiob, 161, and J. GRAY, Job, 169, 170 n. 5, 172–73, make this explicit. Though Gray also claims that ‫ כחד‬can occasionally mean “deny,” he does not give any examples and does not follow that meaning here.

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decrees of the Holy One.’”145 This is highly problematic. First, ‫ כחד‬is in the perfect, not the imperfect, and so does not naturally refer to what Job will not do, but to what he has not done.146 Second, “the truth” is simply not in the text, so the conclusion that Job has not hidden something about the ‫אמרי קדושׁ‬ is doubtful.147 It is the ‫ אמרי קדושׁ‬themselves that Job has not hidden. Whether we read ‫ אמרים‬as “decrees” or “words,” therefore, the parallels in 15:18 and 27:11 imply that Job here claims to have passed along these ‫אמרים‬.148 That being the case, the context strongly suggests that this too is an allusion to the vision. In particular, Job goes on to complain of his weakness before God in 6:11–13, repeating “my flesh” from 4:15 and affirming a similar view of human frailty to 4:19–21 and 7:1–21.149 He also wishes that God would finally “crush” him in 6:9 (‫)דכא‬, echoing 4:19. Later in the chapter as well, Job complains that his friends count “the words [‫ ]אמרים‬of the desperate as wind [‫( ”]רוח‬6:26). On its own, this could mean no more than that they consider his words insubstantial, but sitting between a direct denial that Job has “hidden the words [‫ ]אמרים‬of the Holy One” and a complaint that God terrifies him with visions, this dismissal of his “words” (‫ )אמרים‬as ‫ רוח‬is surely another double entendre, anticipating 8:2, 15:2 and probably 20:3. Therefore, much of Job’s speech in chs. 6–7 can be read as an interpretation of the vision, which Job both complains of and claims to have received and passed along, only to be dismissed by his friends. Where Eliphaz rejects the vision’s pessimistic view of human fate, Job affirms and laments it. II. The Vision in Job 9–10 If Job’s speech in chs. 6–7 reflects the vision’s language and conclusions without directly quoting it, his entire second speech begins in 9:2 with a clear quotation of 4:17:

145 HABEL, Job 147, cf. 140; following DHORME, Job, 82; similarly NEWSOM, Job, 388; BALENTINE, Job, 126; SEOW, Job, 459–460. 146 Recognized by HORST, Hiob, 106. 147 SEOW, Job, 459–460, justifies this by giving the construct itself the sense of “words about the holy one,” then taking this to mean that Job has not suppressed the truth about God. Both moves are dubious. 148 ‫ אמרים‬most often means (spoken) “words” in Job (6:25, 26; 8:2; 32:12, 14; 33:3; 34:37), but 23:12 does parallel “the words [‫ ]אמרים‬of his mouth” with “the commandment [‫ ]מצוה‬of his lips,” while 9:7 and 20:29 use the singular similarly. HABEL, Job, 147, also cites 22:22, but there the parallel “instruction [‫ ]תורה‬from his mouth” and “his words [‫ ]אמרים‬in your heart,” implies teaching, not decrees (nor should the use of ‫ אומר‬in 22:28 be allowed to modify that, as the subject in 22:22 is God, while in 22:28 it is not). 149 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 248, 250; cf. GINSBERG, Patient, 99, 102–4.

C. Job’s Allusions to and Reuse of the Vision

139

9:2 (Job)

4:17 (The Vision)

Indeed I know that this is so; how then can a mortal be righteous with God?

Can a mortal be righteous before [or: more righteous than] God, or can a human being be pure before [or: purer than] their maker?

‫אמנם ידעתי כי־כן‬ ‫ומה־יצדק אנושׁ עם־אל‬

‫האנושׁ מאלוה יצדק‬ ‫אם מעשׂהו יטהר־גבר‬

Job takes from 4:17 the terms ‫“( אנושׁ‬a mortal”) and ‫“( יצדק‬be righteous”) and paraphrases ‫“( מאלוה‬before/more than God”) with ‫“( עם־אל‬with God”). The shift in prepositions from ‫ מן‬to ‫ עם‬is itself significant and will be discussed in Chapter Four, but it is consistent with the periphrastic nature of all the quotations we have surveyed so far.150 Weiss also notes that the inversion from ‫ יצדק‬...‫ אנושׁ‬in 4:17a to ‫ יצדק אנושׁ‬in 9:2b increases the likelihood of a direct reference.151 Unlike the quotation in 15:14, however, Job does not invoke the vision to reject it. Just the opposite; this is preceded by a direct affirmation in 9:2a, “Indeed I know that this is so.” It is debatable whether this refers backward to something in Bildad’s speech,152 or forward to the quotation of 4:17 in 9:2b.153 Either way, however, it contrasts Job’s interpretation of 4:17 with the friends’ claims, as this quotation forms the starting point for the entire speech that follows.154 Putting a new legal edge on the conclusions already reached in 7:17–21, the rest of ch. 9 is a sustained argument that mortals cannot be “righteous” or “innocent” with God, because God does not allow them a fair hearing (9:3–4, 14–20, 32–35). Going further, Job insists that God is actively hostile to human righteousness, and concludes that God “destroys [‫ ]כלה‬both the blameless and the wicked” (9:22). As in chs. 6–7, Job maintains a similarly pessimistic view of human righteousness and destruction to that seen in 4:17–21, but he reframes it as an accusation of divine injustice. Though the vision itself did not explain whether universal condemnation and destruction are 150

That 9:2 quotes or alludes to 4:17 is almost universally acknowledged, e.g. FULLERJob 9–10, 225–269; WEISER, Hiob, 429; HESSE, Hiob, 82; HABEL, Job, 189; CLINES, Job, 1.227; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 206–7; EBACH, Streiten, 93–94; BALENTINE, Job, 164; SEOW, Job, 543. 151 WEISS, Bible from Within, 429. 152 For instance his claim that God will not allow the blameless to perish (8:5–7, 20; PILGER, Erziehung, 193; similarly, CLINES, Job, 1.226; LONGMAN, Job, 168–69). 153 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 249–250. DHORME, Job, 126, recognizes this as an affirmation, and concludes that Job concurs with Eliphaz and his vision (possibility also noted by CLINES, Job, 1.227, following Davidson). 154 DE WILDE, Hiob, 141, and KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 206–7, note that 9:2 serves as a heading and focal point for the speech. As FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 260, and NEWSOM, Contest, 143, observe, 9:2 is ironic, but the irony is not that Job rejects the message of the vision, but that he draws such unconventional conclusions from it. TON,

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justified or not, Job resolves the ambiguity: None is accounted righteous before God, because God disregards human integrity. In this speech as well, Job also applies terms from the visionary’s selfdescription to himself in ways that the friends never do. For instance: 9:11–12 (Job)

4:15–16 (The Vision)

11

15

Surely he goes by me, but I cannot see; he passes by, but I cannot discern him. 12 Surely he snatches away; who can turn him back? Who can say to him, “What are you doing?”

‫ הן יעבר עלי ולא אראה‬11 ‫ויחלף ולא־אבין לו‬ ‫ הן יחתף מי ישׁיבנו‬12 ‫מי־יאמר אליו מה־תעשׂה‬

Then a spirit passes before my face, and the hair of my flesh bristles. 16 It stands still, but I cannot recognize its appearance. A form is in front of my eyes – silence, then I hear a voice:

‫ ורוח על־פני יחלף‬15 ‫תסמר שׂערת בשׂרי‬ ‫ יעמד ולא־אכיר‬16 ‫מראהו תמונה לנגד עיני‬ ‫דממה וקול אשׁמע‬

Habel suggests that this “is an ironic allusion to the eerie wind that ‘glided’ over Eliphaz’ face…. Job, however, can neither ‘see’ (r’y) [sic.] the form (cf. 4:16) nor ‘discern’ (byn) the presence of his God.”155 But where is the contrast? Job’s complaint that God “passes by” (‫ )חלף‬but cannot be “discerned” (‫ )בין‬is directly comparable to the visionary’s claim that a spirit “passed by” (‫ )חלף‬but could not be “recognized” (‫)נכר‬.156 Though different vocabulary is used, the sense is the same. Nor is there any obvious irony of Job’s use of this language, which he uses to describe his own experience at other points as well (e.g. 23:3–9). Moreover, there are additional parallels between this passage and the vision. The question in 9:12b is a formula of reproof, “What are you doing?” (‫)מה־תעשׂה‬, but as Habel notes, it may also be echo the title “Maker” (‫)עשׂה‬, used of God in 9:9–10 and 4:17.157 The verb in 9:12a, ‫חתף‬, also implies violence or theft,158 which could recall the image of a “stolen” word in 4:12, but at the least it parallels the suddenness of death in 4:19–21. More significantly, in 9:13–14 Job offers a mirror image of 4:18–19:

155

HABEL, Job, 191; cf. SEOW, Job, 546, 561. GREENSTEIN, Extent, 249. Going further, TORCZYNER, Hiob, 11, and GINSBERG, Patient, 106, find this connection so close that they move 9:11 to follow 4:16b. Zophar responds to this in 11:10–11. 157 HABEL, Job, 182, notes the use in 9:9–10, but not that in 4:17. On this formula of reproof, cf. HABEL, Job, 192; CLINES, Job, 1.232. 158 CLINES, Job, 1.233. The root appears elsewhere only in Prov 23:28, as a noun apparently meaning robber. 156

141

C. Job’s Allusions to and Reuse of the Vision

9:13–14 (Job)

4:18–19 (The Vision)

13

18

God does not turn back his anger; the helpers of Rahab bowed down beneath him. 14 How much less can I answer him, or choose my words with him?

If he does not trust his servants, and to his messengers he imputes error, 19 how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust?

‫ אלוה לא־ישׁיב אפו‬13 ‫תחתו שׁחחו עזרי רהב‬ ‫ אף כי־אנכי אעננו‬14 ‫אבחרה דברי עמו‬

‫ הן בעבדיו לא יאמין‬18 ‫ובמלאכיו ישׂים תהלה‬ ‫ אף שׁכני בתי־חמר‬19 ‫אשׁר־בעפר יסודם‬ ‫ידכאום לפני־עשׁ‬

Job has inverted the image, replacing God’s “servants” with “the helpers of Rahab,” but the structure is the same: If not even these superhuman figures can stand before God, “how much less” (‫ )אף כי‬a mortal?159 This has a much sharper edge than the vision itself. Where 4:18 affirmed that God mistrusts his servants, here God cannot restrain his anger. And where 4:19 compared this to human beings in general, Job personalizes it: “how much less I” ( ‫אף‬ ‫)כי־אנכי‬. But this is no “ironic” reversal; it is an intensification, which assumes the very thing that the vision itself concludes: that human beings are powerless before God, and their righteousness counts for nothing with him. Job’s attribution of unrestrained anger to God is not a rejection of the vision, but a radical conclusion drawn from it. The remainder of the speech maintains a similar perspective. Job goes on to lament the brevity of life, the impossibility of proving his righteousness, and the universality of judgment (9:15–35). In 9:17, he claims that God “crushes [‫ ]שׁוף‬me for a hair [‫ ”]בשׂערה‬or perhaps “with a tempest,” using a form similar to ‫ שׂערה‬4:15b, and paralleling the reference to mortals being “crushed” in 4:19, with a different verb. In 9:15 and 9:20, he affirms that even if he were innocent he would be condemned, and in 9:30–31 he concludes that even when he tries to cleanse himself God casts him back into the mire, a claim that Eliphaz echoes in paraphrasing the vision in 15:15–16, as we have seen. Perhaps Job’s most radical claim, however, is in 9:22–24: 22

It is all one; therefore I say: He destroys both the blameless and the wicked. 23 When a flood kills suddenly, he mocks the despair of the innocent. 24 The earth has been given into the hand of the wicked; he covers the eyes of its judges – if it is not he, then who is it? 159 CLINES, Job, 1.233, notes that the use of ‫ אף כי‬means “how much less,” but he does not link this to 4:18–19. ‫ הן‬in 4:18 does not appear in 9:13, but it is repeated at the beginning of 9:11 and 9:12. Job also compares himself to the sea and the dragon in 7:12.

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Not only does this affirm the vision’s conclusion that anyone can be destroyed, but Job builds on it to accuse God of mocking the innocent as they perish.160 This again goes well beyond the vision, but its starting point is the same lowly state of humanity before God. Even in affirming his own innocence, therefore, Job accepts the vision’s conclusion that human righteousness is of no account with God, and builds his complaint on it. In ch. 10 Job continues in a similar vein. He again accuses God of obsessing over human sin, even though he knows Job is innocent (10:2–7). He reaffirms that none can stand against God (10:7), and concludes much as he did in ch. 7, with an appeal to God to relent, and let him a moment’s peace before he dies (10:18–22). Yet amidst this, Job invokes a striking image of divine deception that draws a number of terms from the vision, in 10:9–14: 9 Remember that you made me like clay [‫!]חמר‬ Will you return me to dust [‫?]עפר‬ 10 Did you not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese? 11 You clothed me with skin and flesh [‫]בשׂר‬, and weaved me with bones [‫ ]עצמות‬and tendons. 12 You bestowed on me life and faithfulness, and your care guarded my spirit [‫]רוח‬. 13 But these things you hid in your heart; I know that this is so with you: 14 If I sin, you watch me, and do not pardon me for my guilt.

In this passage, Job describes himself with ‫בשׂר‬, ‫עצמות‬, and ‫ רוח‬from 4:12–16 and ‫ חמר‬and ‫ עפר‬from 4:19, and concludes with a blatant charge of deception and inescapable judgment. God had destruction planned all along, and will not pardon any sin. Again, Job not only applies the vision’s vocabulary to himself, but accepts its conclusions. Far from rejecting the vision from which he quotes in 9:2, Job’s whole speech maintains its perspective, concluding that God has deceived, condemned and destroyed him. III. The Vision in the Later Speeches of Job Job’s closing speech of the first cycle reflects a similar perspective. First, 12:4 might allude to the vision: “I am a laughingstock to my friend; one who called to God and he answered, a righteous [‫ ]צדיק‬and blameless laughingstock.” The middle colon is sometimes taken to be a quotation of the friends’ mockery,161 or seen as a self-description of the relation Job used to

160 As CLINES, Job, 237, notes, mocking the innocent is a classic image of the wicked (e.g. Ps 22:8[7]; 35:16; 44:14[13]; 79:4; 80:7[6]; 123:4), but here attributed to God. 161 E.g. JPSV; GORDIS, Job, 523–24; HABEL, Job, 213.

C. Job’s Allusions to and Reuse of the Vision

143

enjoy with God.162 But in light of the rest of the first speech cycle, it is possible to read this as another allusion to Job’s reception of the vision. Job has called to God and been answered, but this has only earned him contempt. The claim to be a “righteous” (‫ )צדיק‬and “blameless” (‫ )תמים‬laughingstock also fits with Job’s use of the vision in chs. 6–7 and 9–10, where he insisted that God disregards his innocence and condemns him anyway. So here even his “answer” from God is merely another sign of his condemnation, and earns him ridicule from his friends.163 The rest of ch. 12 then reaffirms the vision’s conclusion that anyone can perish (12:7–25). Job also affirms his own knowledge, repeating the phrases “my eye” and “my ear” from 4:16 and 4:12: 13:1 (Job)

4:12, 16 (The Vision)

Look, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood it.

12

‫הן־כל ראתה עיני‬ ‫שׁמעה אזני ותבן לה‬

But to me a word is stolen, and my ear receives a whisper of it…. 16 It stands still, but I cannot recognize its appearance. A form is in front of my eyes – silence, then I hear a voice.

‫ ואלי דבר יגנב‬12 … ‫ותקח אזני שׁמץ מנהו‬

‫ יעמד ולא־אכיר מראהו‬16 ‫תמונה לנגד עיני‬ ‫דממה וקול אשׁמע‬

Job need not be referring directly to the vision here, except insofar as it stands behind the account of indiscriminate violence just described in ch. 12, but the perspective and vocabulary are again reminiscent of the vision.164 Regardless, however, Job’s concern in the rest of chs. 13–14 is to have his say (13:3–6, 13–22). Asking if the friends will indeed “speak falsely for God” (‫ ;לאל‬13:7, cf. 13:4, 7–12), Job now formally declares his case against God and seeks a chance to present it. The remainder of the speech also reflects 162

E.g. CLINES, Job, 1.289–290; cf. 29:4; 30:20–21. As DELL, Cursed, 110–111, notes, this may also allude to Jer 20:7c, “I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me.” This could mark another link to the vision with its parallel to Jer 20:7–10. 164 That 13:1 should be seen as the conclusion to ch. 12 is implied by the Wiederaufnahme in 13:2, which repeats ‫ לא־נפל אנכי מכם‬from 12:3. HABEL, Job, 215, 222–23, considers 13:1–5 the conclusion to the speech in 12:2–13:5; BALENTINE, Job, 198, limits it to 12:1–13:3, still including 13:1 with ch. 12. The point of this speech is to challenge the friends’ sources of knowledge, and to depict God’s ordering of creation as a sustained act of depriving humanity of wisdom: “Not only does God prevent mortals from finding their destined ‘way,’ he causes them to wander from that way” (HABEL, Job, 217; cf. 215–223). Habel assumes that Job rejects Eliphaz’s vision, Bildad’s appeal to traditional wisdom and Zophar’s offer of divine wisdom (215–16), but this account does not reject the vision’s conclusions of universal condemnation; it intensifies them. 163

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Chapter 2: The Vision in the First Two Speech Cycles

similar complaints of divine antagonism and human frailty to those seen before (esp. 13:24–14:4; 14:15–22).165 In the end, Job reaffirms the conclusion from 4:19–21: 14:19–21 (Job)

4:19–21 (The Vision)

19

19

Water wears away stones; torrents wash away the dust of the earth; and you destroy the hope of a mortal. 20 You prevail forever against him, and he passes away; you change his face, and send him away. 21 His children are honored, and he does not know; they are humbled, and he does not perceive it. 22 Only his own flesh feels pain, and he mourns only for himself.

‫ אבנים שׁחקו מים‬19 ‫תשׁטף־ספיחיה עפר־ארץ‬ ‫ותקות אנושׁ האבדת‬ ‫ תתקפהו לנצח ויהלך‬20 ‫משׁנה פניו ותשׁלחהו‬ ‫ יכבדו בניו ולא ידע‬21 ‫ויצערו ולא־יבין למו‬ ‫ אך־בשׂרו עליו יכאב‬22 ‫ונפשׁו עליו תאבל פ‬

how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust? They are crushed before the moth, 20 from morning to evening they are destroyed; they perish forever without notice. 21 Is not their cord pulled up within them? They die, and not in wisdom.

‫ אף שׁכני בתי־חמר‬19 ‫אשׁר־בעפר יסודם‬ ‫ידכאום לפני־עשׁ‬ ‫ מבקר לערב יכתו‬20 ‫מבלי משׂים לנצח יאבדו‬ ‫ הלא־נסע יתרם בם‬21 ‫ימותו ולא בחכמה‬

Though there are thematic parallels with the vision across the speech, this conclusion offers the clearest allusion, splitting the expression “perish forever” from 4:20 and using the Hiphil form to make explicit that God is the one who destroys. Like the vision, this is applied to “a mortal” (‫)אנושׁ‬, not only to the wicked. The complaint that “he does not know” also recalls the claim that mortals perish “without notice” in 4:20, and the reference to “his flesh [‫”]בשׂר‬ links this back to Job’s own experience, and the visionary’s (4:15). As in chs. 6–7 and 9–10, Job’s final speech of the first cycle both echoes the vision’s language and builds on its conclusions. In sharp contrast to the friends who repeat the vision’s imagery only to reject its challenge to human righteousness and conclusion that destruction is indiscriminate, Job takes both as a given, and reframes them as a direct accusation of God. In later speeches, Job shifts his attention more strongly to his own legal case against God and no longer directly alludes to the vision.166 Only in ch. 165

GINSBERG, Patient, 102. Though cf. 19:25–27, which repeats ‫עפר‬, ‫בשׂרי‬, ‫אלוה‬, and ‫ עיני‬from the vision, and uses ‫ חזה‬twice. 166

D. Conclusions

145

26 and 27:13–23 does the vision again seem to be in view, and as we will see in the next chapter, those passages represent very different perspectives than Job’s earlier speeches maintain. Nevertheless, human frailty, inescapable judgment and indiscriminate destruction remain presuppositions of Job’s thought across the dialogues, even where he does not specifically invoke the vision’s imagery, and virtually all of his speeches continue to speak in the same first-person forms and use similar vocabulary to the vision. These are not necessarily deliberate allusions, simply a reflection of the fact that the vision’s own form and language very closely align with Job’s, in a way that simply is not true of Eliphaz or any of the friends. Across the first cycle, however, Job’s speeches are dominated by the vision’s imagery, returning again and again to expand on its conclusions that none are accounted righteous and any can perish. These claims form the backbone of his entire argument, and represent perhaps the most significant point of dispute between Job and his friends. Job not only constantly describes himself in the same ways that the visionary does, he also directly claims to have passed along “the words of the Holy One,” and complains of dreams and visions. He begins his whole speech in chs. 9–10 with a quotation of the vision’s message, upon which he builds much of his argument, and he returns to the theme again in chs. 12–14. Despite the vision’s current placement in Eliphaz’s first speech, Job nowhere attributes it to Eliphaz, nor responds to its claims as though they represented his position. Just the opposite: Job describes himself as the visionary and defends the vision’s conclusions against his friends’ rebuttals. In short, Job treats the vision as his own.

D. Conclusions D. Conclusions

Due to its placement in Eliphaz’s speech, commentators have often attempted to reconcile the vision’s anomalies and surprising conclusions to Eliphaz’s own perspective, but comparison with the rest of the first two speech cycles belies these attempts. Eliphaz nowhere else refers to his own visions or describes his own experience in a manner comparable to the first-person address in 4:12–16. He never describes his own body nor admits to being afraid as the visionary does, and he regularly uses the vision’s language to describe Job and the wicked. Despite the common assumption that the vision encapsulates Eliphaz’s own pessimistic view of human nature, he only quotes from it once, in 15:14– 16, where he blends it with Job’s words and seems to attribute it to Job himself. Everywhere else, Eliphaz denies the vision’s conclusions, assuming that it is possible to be righteous, and insisting that only the wicked ever truly perish (4:7–11; 5:2–5; 15:20–35). The most he is willing to concede to the vision is that mortals might suffer “trouble” (5:7), and be disciplined by God

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(5:17), but even then he denies that suffering is inherent to creation (5:6), and concludes that the innocent do not die, but are rescued and restored (4:7; 5:8– 27). Though neither is as explicit about it as Eliphaz, both of the other two friends adopt the same stance toward the vision. Both maintain the same foundational contrast between the righteous and the wicked. Neither speaks in the first person at any length, and both only use the visionary’s corporeal imagery to describe Job, the wicked, or God, never themselves. Only in 20:2– 3 do the friends speak with anything resembling the visionary’s tone, and that is almost certainly a paraphrase of Job. There and elsewhere the friends constantly blend their allusions to the vision with expressions from Job’s own speeches, and reject its conclusions. Job, by contrast, directly complains that God terrifies him with visions, denies that he has “hidden the words of the Holy One,” and explicitly affirms the truth of 4:17 in 9:2. The ambiguous imagery that so troubles the vision’s own interpretation is characteristic of Job’s style, not Eliphaz’s. Again and again, with direct allusions to the vision and without, Job constantly speaks in the same first-person mode as 4:12–16, describes his own fear and confusion in precisely the same ways as the visionary, and uses the very same expressions to describe his own body. Unlike the friends, Job accepts the vision’s conclusion that none is accounted righteous and any can suddenly perish, and builds his own arguments on their basis. Job also finds the vision deeply disturbing, but he never challenges its truth, never attributes it to Eliphaz, and never doubts that it is a sign of God’s judgment on him. Not only does the vision itself clearly reflect Job’s style, but it plays a central role in his thinking throughout the first speech cycle. Yet if all of these subsequent speeches link it to Job, why does the vision itself appear in Eliphaz’s speech? That its form and content are surprising is not itself a problem – after all, the visionary himself describes it as disturbing and unexpected. The problem is its location. It is like finding a glowing hot meteorite in the middle of an otherwise peaceful field. If it crashed here from heaven, why has it made no greater impact on Eliphaz’s thought? How can he report so startling and dreadful a vision in 4:12–21, only to turn right back to the traditional view it upends in the very next passage? But while Eliphaz’s thought shows little evidence of the vision’s impact, Job’s entire landscape has been blasted by its coming. Each of his next three speeches will struggle to make sense of its aftermath, building on its conclusions that God holds none righteous and any can suddenly die. Both he and his friends attribute the vision and its imagery to Job, but where he finds it inescapable, they attempt to explain it away. For the friends, the vision is an anomaly to be quarantined or denied. For Job it is ground zero.

Chapter 3

“How Small a Whisper We Hear of Him” The Vision in the Development of the Book Chapter 3: The Vision in the Development of the Book Introduction

Though Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar each differ in their approach and tone, they are united in their stalwart adherence to ancestral wisdom and their resolute dismissal of Job’s challenges. The vision in 4:12–21 shatters that unity and undermines the very foundation of their system. Despite its appearance in the middle of Eliphaz’s speech, the vision is a clear expression of Job’s point of view, and is treated as such throughout the first two speech cycles. Nowhere else do the friends describe themselves with the kind of fearful and corporeal imagery as the visionary uses, but Job does so constantly. Nowhere else do they admit the vision’s conclusion that any human being can suddenly die, but Job insists on this repeatedly. The vision plays no positive role in the friends’ self-description or argumentation anywhere in the first half of the book. Even where they quote or allude to it, the context implies critique rather than embrace, linking its imagery to Job or the wicked, not themselves. It would be one thing if its anomalies were confined to 4:17–21. Then it might be imagined that Eliphaz simply reports what he has heard from the “spirit,” without accepting it himself. Even Job’s reliance on the vision might be reconciled to it in this way, by imagining that he accepts Eliphaz’s revelation even though Eliphaz does not. But this is too simplistic, as the strongest links between the vision and Job’s perspective lie not in the message of the vision but in its introduction. It is the visionary’s own self-description that is impossible to reconcile to Eliphaz’s perspective, and inexorably binds it to Job’s. As a self-description, its anomalies cannot be dismissed as nothing more than a reflection of the unprecedented nature of the experience. For Eliphaz to describe his own vision in this way, then go on to both deny its conclusions and apply the visionary’s self-description to the wicked, would violate everything else we know about his perspective and approach. Yet despite all of that, the vision appears in Eliphaz’s speech. How did it get there? Of those who have recognized how thoroughly out of place the vision is on Eliphaz’s lips, Witte and his followers have taken the most direct approach. Concluding that the vision cannot be original to ch. 4, they argue that the whole account, along with its later quotations, was added at a late

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stage in the development of the book.1 But this cannot be, for while the friends do not rely on the vision, they do respond to it, and link its imagery to Job. Meanwhile, the vision’s own language is far from unprecedented in the book – it directly parallels Job’s own style of expression. While the friends’ steadfastly maintain their traditional system, Job’s entire worldview has been upended by the vision’s challenge to human righteousness. All of Job’s confused and contradictory attempts to make sense of his experience build on the vision’s conclusions. He also directly complains of terrifying visions, refers to passing along God’s “words,” and explicitly affirms the vision’s truth. As poorly as it fits in Eliphaz’s speech, therefore, the vision is thoroughly at home in Job’s, and can by no means simply be deleted from the original form of the book. Thus the question is all the more forceful: If this is Job’s vision, why does it appear in Eliphaz’s speech? Tur-Sinai and his followers proposed two types of explanation for its current location: accidental displacement and extended quotation. According to the first, the manuscript of Job must have suffered some kind of physical damage and been incorrectly reconstructed, leaving the vision displaced from its proper location in one of Job’s speeches.2 According to the second, the vision is original to ch. 4, but like 15:14–16 it is a deliberate quotation of Job, to which Eliphaz responds in the remainder of the speech.3 For those who prefer to read Job on a synchronic level, the latter seems to offer a way to preserve the integrity of the final form, but we will see that it raises more problems than it solves. The displacement theory is more compelling, especially in Greenstein’s formulation, but it also faces serious objections. He rightly argues that the vision fits much better in Job 3 than in Job 4, and that the whole structure of the book makes better sense if the vision originally formed the conclusion to Job’s opening complaint. The problem lies in the mechanism that Greenstein and others invoke to account for this displacement. Even if accidental displacement is theoretically possible, for it to occur precisely at the edges of the passage would require a significant number of coincidences. Moreover, there is another side to the vision’s role in the book that has not yet been adequately considered, and impinges directly upon any understanding of the vision’s placement. Virtually everyone who denies that the vision is original to Eliphaz appeals to the so-called “third speech cycle” for support, each claiming that their preferred solutions are paralleled there, especially in 1 WITTE, Leiden; cf. VERMEYLEN, Le méchant, 101–127, esp. 108–9; O. KAISER, Grundriß, 70–83, esp. 74–75; idem, Hiob, 116–17, 125–27; SYRING, Anwalt, 147–48, 165– 66; KOTTSIEPER, Thema verfehlt, 2.775–85, esp. 82; VAN OORSCHOT, Entstehung, 182– 184; NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, esp. 2–3, 17–44, 65–68. 2 TORCZYNER, Hiob, V-VIII, 10–14; GINSBERG, Patient, 88–111; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 245–262. 3 TUR-SINAI, Job, LII, 88–91; SMITH, Vision, 453–463.

Introduction

149

Bildad’s paraphrase of 4:17–19 in 25:4–6. For Witte, the third speech cycle is the product of the same redactional activity that also led to the insertion of 4:12–21 and other allusions to the vision in the first two speech cycles.4 For Tur-Sinai and Greenstein, the displacements they propose in ch. 4 are paralleled by other displacements in the third speech cycle.5 Smith even defends the quotation theory with an appeal to Job 25, claiming that Bildad’s implicit quotation of the vision confirms that 4:12–21 could be another one.6 Yet the significance of the second half of the dialogues to the interpretation of the vision extends well beyond the allusion in Bildad’s third speech. Not only does much of the third speech cycle contradict Job’s earlier perspective and approach – including toward the vision – but even the Elihu speeches continue to respond to the vision, and offer important clues to our understanding of the shifts that have occurred. What demands further attention is how the third speech cycle inverts the pattern of the vision’s use in the first two cycles. When Bildad paraphrases 4:17–19 in 25:4–6, he does not dismiss or repudiate its conclusions as he did in ch. 8. On the contrary, he reframes the vision with a straightforward affirmation of God’s supremacy, and seems to embrace it as a legitimate depiction of human nature. Nor is it only the friends’ use of the vision that shifts in the third speech cycle; Job’s does as well. A number of statements in Job’s speeches in chs. 24–27 stand strongly at odds with his earlier claims. That Job describes the fate of the wicked much as his friends had done is well known, and itself implicitly challenges the position he had earlier maintained vis-àvis the vision, but Job also speaks in a very different register here than he does in chs. 3–21 and chs. 29–31. Though 23:1–17 and 27:2–6 especially continue to reflect the style that so dominated Job’s earlier speeches, the rest of the third speech cycle completely lacks the extended first-person address, corporeal imagery and fearful selfdescription that are otherwise distinctive of his style. Not surprisingly, then, what use Job does make of the vision’s imagery in these chapters is also very different than what was seen before. He does not often apply it to himself in chs. 24–27, and occasionally even applies it to the wicked, something that was distinctive of the friends earlier. Most notable of all, in ch. 26 he seems to reverse the conclusions he drew from the vision in ch. 9, portraying God’s power as awe-inspiring instead of dreadful and unjust, and concluding with what may be a dismissive allusion to the vision: “Behold, these are the outskirts of his ways, and what a whisper [‫ ]שׁמץ‬of a word we hear of him! But 4 E.g. WITTE, Leiden; O. KAISER, Grundriß, 74–75; NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, esp. 1– 16, 65–68. 5 TORCZYNER, Hiob, 178–181; TUR-SINAI, Job, LIV, 374–77; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 261–62. 6 SMITH, Vision, 459.

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who can understand the thunder of his might?” (26:14). ‫ שׁמץ‬is unique to 4:12 and 26:14 in the Hebrew Bible, and could imply that the conclusions earlier drawn from the vision are unimportant next to the power of God, which is beyond human comprehension. All of this suggests that an important shift has occurred in the treatment of the vision within the book, but when and how it occurred is complicated by the fact that still later passages appear to revert back to the old perspective. Though Job does not directly allude to the vision in his closing monologue, the perspective once again resembles his earlier speeches, not that of the problematic portions of the third speech cycle. Elihu’s speeches also seem to attribute the vision to Job at various points, and respond to his earlier stance towards it, though they interpret it very differently than the friends did. Why the third speech cycle is so different than the rest of the book has been explained in three primary ways: as the original poet’s intent to show the breakdown of the dialogue, as a secondary redactional addition, and as a product of accidental displacement. Each of these theories recognizes important aspects of the vision’s role in these chapters, but underestimates others. Drawing from each, I will argue that the most plausible explanation is that the material currently attributed to Job in 26:2–14 and 27:13–23 was original to the friends, but has been intentionally reattributed to Job at some point after the Elihu speeches were composed. These shifts are not random, but imply a deliberate attempt to distance Job from the vision and the most troubling conclusions he derived from it in his earlier speeches. If that is true, then it also throws new light on the anomalous placement of the vision itself. I will argue that the vision’s current attribution to Eliphaz and the anomalies in the second half of the book are by no means coincidental. Neither is original, but together they resulted from a concerted effort to reframe the vision’s role within the book, deliberately obscuring the vision’s attribution to Job and minimizing the impact of his more subversive conclusions from it. To see this, we will first consider the role of the vision in chs. 3–5, then examine the allusions to the vision in the second half of the dialogue, and finally consider the development of the third speech cycle and its implications for the current placement of the vision.

A. The Vision in Job 3–5 A. The Vision in Job 3–5

So far we have examined how the vision is taken up in several subsequent speeches, but having seen that these stand in strong tension with the vision’s attribution to Eliphaz, we must now reconsider its current placement in ch. 3– 5. If this is Job’s experience being reported, why does it appear in Eliphaz’s speech? We will begin with the two primary explanatory models proposed by Tur-Sinai and his followers: extended quotation and accidental displacement.

A. The Vision in Job 3–5

151

I. Is the Vision a Quotation of Job? If the vision is Job’s, then the only way to maintain the originality of the present form of ch. 4 is to read the whole of 4:12–21 as a quotation. TurSinai’s later commentary took this approach, and Smith also followed it, though differing on several details.7 For Tur-Sinai, this extended quotation of Job is introduced in 4:10–11, which he takes to describe Job’s speech as “a lion’s roaring.”8 By contrast Smith simply concludes that 4:12–21 is an implicit quotation of Job, finding precedent in Bildad’s implicit paraphrase of the vision in 25:4–6.9 As we have seen, the friends do quote the vision as Job’s words elsewhere, preeminently in 15:12–16, so it is theoretically possible to see 4:12–21 as another quotation. The fact that the rest of chs. 4–5 seems to respond to the vision and challenge its claims would therefore be no anomaly, but consistent with Eliphaz’s approach in ch. 15. The advantage of this theory is that it offers to resolve the tension between the vision’s current placement and its subsequent use without reorganizing the text. If accepted, it might also suggest a different way of understanding the critical elements seen within the vision itself, especially in 4:12–16. These could be read as Eliphaz’s means of implicitly critiquing Job, implying that his vision is in fact deceptive and a sign of divine judgment. The friends’ use of this language to describe the wicked could be taken to parallel and confirm this, such that all of them together implicitly condemn Job in his own words.10 The problem is that such a critical edge is not evident in the rest of chs. 4–5, where Eliphaz is generally positive and encouraging toward Job, affirming his piety (4:2–6) and promising blessing (5:8–27).11 Tur-Sinai’s reading of 4:10–11 is also dubious, both on a syntactic level and as a purported introduction to what follows.12 Yet Smith’s proposal of an 7 TUR-SINAI, Job, 88–91, 250–51, 376–77; SMITH, Vision, 453–463. Tur-Sinai still maintains that the text has been disrupted, so that Eliphaz quotes a vision that originally stood earlier in the book but is now absent. Smith does not clarify his view of the diachronic development of the book. 8 TUR-SINAI, Job, 78, cf. 79–80, 88–89. Though typically read as a vignette on the fate of the wicked, he analyzes 4:10–11 as a set of open-ended relative clauses meant to introduce what follows: “A lion’s roaring, crying of a beast! (gnashing of) teeth of lions that roam about! Of a lion straying without prey, of a lion’s whelps, scattered about.” 9 SMITH, Vision, 457–460. He also notes a briefer implicit quotation in 21:19, where Job appears to paraphrase the friends (cf. 20:10) without a citation formula (virtually all translations add “You say,” but this is not explicit). 10 Since none of those who accept that the vision is Job’s recognize these subversive elements in 4:12–16, such a reading has not previously been suggested, but Tur-Sinai’s interpretation of 4:10–11 does suggest a similarly critical edge to Eliphaz’s purported quotation of Job (cf. TUR-SINAI, Job, 79–80, 88–89). 11 On the consolatory tone of the speech, cf. FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 326–340 et passim; HABEL, Job, 118–19. NEWSOM, Contest, 90–91; cf. idem, Consolations, 347–358. 12 GINSBERG, Patient, 104.

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implicit quotation is still more difficult to accept. Can we really imagine that Eliphaz would interrupt his own speech with an extended quotation in the first person, without any sort of introductory formula? In fact, the very parallels claimed to support this reading actually undermine it. None of the other quotations in the book is nearly as long or complex as 4:12–21. Instead, as Ginsberg recognized, the normal practice throughout Job is to quote or paraphrase only the most important points from an opponent’s words, not their full context.13 This is clear in 15:14–16 and 25:4–6, which are otherwise the longest apparent quotations in the book. Each repeats no more than 4:17–19, and even then with significant modifications. The allusions in ch. 20 are even more typical, simply drawing key terms and expressions from Job’s speeches and the vision, rather than repeating extended blocks of text.14 More importantly, to call 4:12-21 a quotation implies that Eliphaz is quoting something that Job has already said. But Job’s only earlier speech is in ch. 3, where he certainly does not report a vision in the book as we have it. For this reason, Tur-Sinai maintains that the order of chapters has been disrupted, and that the speech in ch. 4 originally appeared after some other speech of Job’s in which he reported this vision (he suggests ch. 9 or chs. 25– 26, the latter also reattributed to Job).15 He then accounts for the fact that only a small portion of the vision currently appears in those chapters by suggesting that after the order of dialogues was disrupted, Job’s own recounting of the vision was deleted by a later scribe. This is all highly speculative and eliminates whatever simplicity was gained by calling 4:12–21 a quotation. Smith, by contrast, simply neglects to say what it is that Eliphaz is quoting. Though he once mentions that Eliphaz is “quoting the ‘lost’ vision of Job,”16 13 GINSBERG, Patient, 104. This is evident from the other implicit quotations to which SMITH, Vision, 457–460, appeals: 20:2–3; 21:19; 25:4–6. He also points to other quotations that are introduced in various ways: 8:3 (introduced indirectly in 8:2), 21:28 (“you say”), 33:9–11 (introduced in 33:8; cf. 33:12), 35:2, 3 (each with a reference to speech). All of these are relatively brief. GORDIS, Book of God, 169–189, also finds numerous quotations of various sorts in Job, but none longer than three verses. He emphasizes that quotations of one speaker by another in the book are virtually always periphrastic and abbreviated (175; cf. also KYNES, My Psalm, 47). Though TUR-SINAI, Job, LII, further claims that “the speakers quote the words of others – sometimes at length, to the extent of whole portions,” the only examples he gives are the vision itself, its quotations in 15:14–16 and perhaps 22:2–3, and a still more dubious example in 19:23–24. 14 Therefore, while Tur-Sinai claims that such extended quotations are characteristic of the book as a whole, he concludes that virtually all of this has been obscured by later scribal activity, which deleted most of the repetitious quotations. For instance, he claims that originally the whole of 4:12–21 must have also been quoted in ch. 20, and that all of this was deleted as needless repetition except for small bits of 20:2–4 (TUR-SINAI, Job, LIV, 309–311). There is no basis for this supposition. 15 TUR-SINAI, Job, LIV, 154–55, 376–77. 16 SMITH, Vision, 457.

A. The Vision in Job 3–5

153

he never clarifies the comment. Regardless, however, even a quotation theory seems to require appealing to a form of the text no longer extant, without adequately explaining the text we actually have. But if the dialogue has been disrupted, it is much simpler to imagine that there was only ever one report of the vision, and only its placement is secondary. That was Tur-Sinai’s original suggestion, and even after he abandoned it, Ginsberg and Greenstein have taken it up and set it on a firmer footing. II. The Vision is the Original Conclusion to Job 3 Tur-Sinai initially proposed that both 4:12–21 and 25:2–6 were accidentally displaced from Job’s own speeches, and that the most likely original position of the vision was at the beginning of ch. 9.17 This was part of his larger argument that the book originally included only one speech cycle, which was later disrupted.18 But as has already been argued in the Introduction, there is no basis for such a widespread reshuffling of the book. To be sure, Job draws extensively on the vision in ch. 9, but that does not require that he first reported it there. The quotation of 4:17 in 9:2 reads more naturally as a reference to something previously reported than as a repetition of something Job has just said. The same is true of the allusions in 7:11-21, as well as of the friends’ responses to the vision throughout the first speech cycle. As Ginsberg first observed, therefore, that only leaves one viable option: that the vision was the original conclusion to ch. 3, to which Eliphaz responds in ch. 4. Ginsberg himself offers little defense of this placement,19 but Greenstein has added a few arguments in its favor.20 First, the style of the vision aligns much more closely with the speech in ch. 3 than with anything else in Eliphaz’s response. Unlike chs. 4–5, Job parallels the vision’s use of tri-cola and more complex lines (3:4–6, 9, 26) and speaks extensively in the first person (3:3, 10–13, 16, 24–26). He uses first-person singular suffixes to refer to his own body (“my eyes,” ‫עיני‬, and even “my womb,” ‫ ;בטני‬3:10), and to his suffering (“my sighing” and “my groans,” 3:24), just as the visionary does.21 Finally, Job emphasizes “the

17 TORCZYNER, Hiob, 10–14, 44–45, 178–181. Even in his later commentaries he continues to maintain that ch. 25 was originally attributed to Job, and secondarily displaced (TUR-SINAI, Job, 376–77). 18 TORCZYNER, Hiob, V-VIII. 19 GINSBERG, Patient, 105–6. 20 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 258–260; cf. idem, Skin, 66–68. 21 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 260. The reference to “my womb” is no doubt elliptical for “my mother’s womb,” but the omission of an explicit mention of his mother does not appear to be merely stylistic or accidental. Job does not explicitly refer to either of his parents in the whole of 3:3–10. This seems to be a deliberate means of emphasizing Job’s feeling of complete aloneness (GREENSTEIN, Inspiration, 102–3).

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dread that I dreaded” (‫ )פחד פחדתי‬in 3:25, using the same term also repeated twice in 4:14.22 Structurally, Greenstein notes that the similar uses of the term ‫“( אבד‬to perish”) in 3:3 and 4:20 would have framed the entire speech if the vision originally appeared at the end of ch. 3.23 This framing is supported by the fact that the first reference is tied to “the day” and “the night” of Job’s birth, while the second is linked to the death of all mortals “between morning and evening.” This not only employs similar temporal imagery, but in both cases it implies the futility of human striving. By reaching back to his own birth, Job suggests that the trouble he now experiences is inborn (cf. esp. 3:10), which anticipates the vision’s conclusion that violence is inherent to human life (4:19–21). Where the two differ is that 3:3–12 presents death as an unfulfilled wish, while 4:19–21 presents it as an inescapable threat. Far from undermining the parallel, however, this supports it, as 3:12–19 embodies precisely the same tension: Job’s very longing for death is expressed through a recounting of its universal scope: “the small and the great are there” (3:19), kings alongside still-born children (3:14–16). Indeed, the same tension is characteristic of Job’s speeches as a whole, which regularly juxtapose wishes for death with laments that it is unavoidable.24 The vision’s hints of divine deception and antagonism may also clarify a number of ambiguities inherent to 3:20–26. Perhaps most notable is Job’s indirect self-description in 3:23, as “a man whose way is hidden, and God has closed in behind him.” Newsom, who does not recognize that the vision is Job’s, observes that the point of 3:20–23 is that: God, not human lords, is responsible for the deprivation of even minimal autonomy, which makes life a matter of dread and death a matter of rejoicing. What characterizes subjugated existence is the inability of the person to plan and carry out purposive action, for such a one is “the man whose way is hidden, whom Eloah has hedged in.”25

This is precisely what 4:19–21 concludes: that no matter what human beings do, destruction comes swiftly and unexpectedly. Further, if the point of 3:23 is that God has “hidden” Job’s way, this also suggests a measure of deception that closely aligns with 4:12–16.26 Is it any wonder, then, that Job describes 22

GREENSTEIN, Extent, 258. GREENSTEIN, Extent, 260. He also posits a link between the spirit in 4:15 and those who rouse Leviathan in 3:8 (whom he identifies as “demons,” ‫ ;שדים‬259), but this is a much more problematic linkage. 24 Cf. e.g. 6:8–13 with 7:6–10, 21; 9:21 with 9:25–26; 10:1, 18–19 with 10:20–22; 16:8–17:1 with 17:11–16. This tension within Job’s depictions of death is noted by KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 152–161; ZUCKERMAN, Silent, 126–135. 25 NEWSOM, Contest, 96; similarly, HABEL, Job, 112. 26 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 260, notes the link between 3:23 and the vision without recogniying the implications of deception. He reads 3:23 simply as a complaint that God gives life without taking an interest in the lives of his creations, which the vision confirms. 23

A. The Vision in Job 3–5

155

this experience with “dread” in 3:25, just as the visionary does in 4:14?27 In fact, the whole of 3:24–26 closely fits with 4:12–16, maintaining the same first-person perspective and fearful tone as the vision: 24 For my sighing comes like my bread, and my groans are poured out like water, 25 Because the dread that I dreaded has come upon me, and that which I feared befalls me. 26 I was not at ease, nor at peace, I had no rest, and turmoil came.

This first-person account of dread, sleeplessness and turmoil offers a much more natural context for the vision than 4:7–11 and 5:1–5.28 Greenstein notes that the reference to “the dread that I dreaded” serves as a bridge between Job’s lament and the recounting of the vision,29 and the same is also true of 3:26. It not only implies a similar sleeplessness to 4:13, but its final word ‫רגז‬ may point forward to the vision’s hints of divine judgment. Newsom observes that ‫ רגז‬refers not simply to “trouble,” but to Job’s inner “turmoil.”30 This is no neutral term for unease. Across the Hebrew Bible, the root most often describes the response of those who stand under God’s judgment.31 That the same is meant here is supported by the account in 3:20–23, HARDING, Metaprophecy, 527–28, notes that 3:23 parallels Isa 40:27, where YHWH challenges Israel’s claim that their way is hidden (‫ )נסתרה דרכי‬from YHWH. In Job 3:23, Job is the speaker, and seems to mean that God has himself hidden Job’s way, rather than that it is hidden from God (cf. Job 19:8; DHORME, Job, 39; HARDING, Metaprophecy, 542 n. 16). After all, God can hardly hedge Job in if he does not know where Job is. 27 Commentators have often speculated on what Job “dreads,” with no consensus. The simplest explanation would seem to be that Job refers to his suffering itself (so e.g. HABEL, Job, 112; HARTLEY, Job, 100), but surprisingly, Job 3 never describes Job’s suffering or loss. CLINES, Job, 1.103, is probably closer in suggesting “the advent of turmoil” (cf. 3:26), but what is the source and nature of that “turmoil”? ANDERSEN, Job, 110, offers the most intriguing suggestion: “the loss of God’s favor.” But while this might be implied by 3:23, it is nowhere explicit. For that matter, how does Job know that he has lost God’s favor? Again, ch. 3 as we have it never says, but the vision may. 28 GINSBERG, Patient, 105; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 258–260. Though Ginsberg thinks the vision originally appeared after 3:25, even going so far as to reverse the order of 3:25–26, this is wholly unnecessary. 3:26 works as well if not better as a transition, and might even explain the ‫ ו‬that introduces 4:12, which has otherwise troubled commentators (WITTE, Leiden, 70). As a transition from 4:11, ‫ ו‬is unexpected, as the friends never introduce a new section in this way, but Job does so regularly (e.g. 9:25; 12:7; 17:6; 30:1, 9; see Chapter Two Section A.I), and after the overloaded series in 3:26, ‫לא שׁלותי ולא שׁקטתי ולא־נחתי‬ ‫ויבא רגז‬, it may not be surprising if the next clause also began with a ‫ו‬. 29 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 258. 30 NEWSOM, Contest, 94–96. 31 E.g. Exod 15:14; Deut 2:25; 28:65; 1 Sam 14:15; 28:15; Ps 99:1; Isa 5:25; 13:13; 23:11; 32:11; Jer 50:34; Joel 2:1; Am 8:8; Mic 7:17; Job uses the term in another passage that echoes the vision as well, in 14:1. J. GRAY, Job, 145, also suggests that the term could

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which implies that it is not primarily disaster that Job laments, but that God has turned against him. Yet how does Job know this? The speech as we have it gives no account of God’s judgment against Job, leaving its whole conclusion without explicit foundation. But if the argument in Chapter One is correct, then the vision itself directly fills that gap, by recounting God’s act of deception and judgment. It is this vision, I suggest, that is the true cause of Job’s “turmoil,” and which motivates the entire speech that precedes it. This also clarifies what is perhaps the most surprising aspect of Job’s speech: Why he immediately curses, rather than appealing to God for rescue. Even Jeremiah’s complaints are framed as appeals, meant to urge God to act in his favor, but Job makes no appeal.32 Why? It cannot be simply that he has suffered, for the whole point of the lament tradition is to appeal for rescue from suffering. That Job instead curses suggests that he knows something more, and the vision tells us what: that God has not just allowed Job to be destroyed, but actively sought his destruction.33 Not only does the vision clarify the end of Job’s speech, therefore; it also balances and explains the curse in 3:3–9. Following Greenstein, the original form of the speech would have had a neatly balanced structure, framed on each side by the curse and the vision: 3:3–9 3:10 3:11–12 3:13–19 3:20–23 3:24–26 4:12–21

A. Curse on the Day of Birth B. Reason for the Curse (‫)כי‬ C. Question: Why did I not die at birth? (‫)למה‬ B. Reasons for the Question (‫)כי‬ C. Question: Why does God give light? (‫)למה‬ B. Reason for the Question (‫)כי‬ A'. Motivation for the Curse: the Vision34

Greenstein supports this primarily by appealing to the parallel uses of ‫ אבד‬in 3:3 and 4:20.35 I would suggest that the biblical background to 3:3–11 and refer to God’s wrath itself, opening up the possibility of a double entendre (cf. e.g. Hab 3:2; Ezek 16:43). 32 See esp. Jer 20:11–13; cf. 12:1–3; 15:15–21. ZUCKERMAN, Silent, 124–27, and NEWSOM, Contest, 93, note this difference between Jeremiah and Job. 33 Contra NEWSOM, Contest, 93–94, who suggests that it is Job’s inner turmoil that makes his suffering unbearable. It is not the turmoil itself but its cause that drives his unprecedented reaction – that God has turned against him. 34 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 259. HABEL, Job, 103, also separates 3:3–10 off as a distinct from 3:11–26, which fits well with Greenstein’s suggestion that the former is without counterpart at the end of the speech. This is slightly disrupted by 3:16, which restates the question from 3:11–12, but without the interrogative nor a restatement of ‫כי‬. HABEL, Job, 103, and CLINES, Job, 1.76, therefore further break this up: question (3:11–12), reason (3:13–15), question (3:16), reason (3:17–19), question (3:20), reason (3:21–22), question (3:23), reasons (3:24–26). Though Greenstein’s proposed seven-part structure is aesthetically pleasing, the overall shape of the chapter is not much affected. 35 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 259.

A. The Vision in Job 3–5

157

4:12–21 respectively can add an additional argument in favor of such a reconstruction. It was noted in Chapter One that the closest parallels to the visionary’s first-person allusions to divine deception are found in Jeremiah’s confessions, especially Jer 20:7.36 In light of the evidence that the vision is Job’s, this parallel is even more intriguing, as Jer 20:7–10 as a whole offers a succinct summary of an experience very much like Job’s: 7

You have deceived me, O YHWH, and I was deceived; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock [‫ ]שׂחוק‬all day long; everyone mocks me. 8 For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word [‫ ]דבר‬of YHWH has become for me disgrace and derision all day long. 9 If I say, “I will not mention him, nor speak any more in his name,” then within me it is like a burning fire shut up in my bones [‫;]בעצמתי‬ I am tired of holding it in, and I cannot. 10 For I hear many whispers: “Terror all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” All my close friends watch for me to stumble. “Perhaps he is deceived, and we can prevail against him, and take our vengeance on him.”

Not only does this include a first-person account of divine deception comparable to that in Job 4:12–21, but it also parallels the reference to suffering in “my bones” (‫ ;עצמותי‬4:14) due to the divine word, and the emphasis on terror (4:14), “violence” and “destruction” (4:19–21). In later passages, Job will also complain of the reproach of his friends and acquaintances, even using the very language of Jer 20:7–8, as Dell observes.37 For instance, in 12:4 Job complains: “I am a laughingstock [‫ ]שׂחק‬to my friend, one who called upon God and was answered, a just and blameless laughingstock [‫]שׂחוק‬.” The term ‫ שׂחוק‬is rare, and only used to refer to a person who is mocked in this passage and in Jeremiah and Lamentations.38 That Job uses the same term in the same way in a comparable context supports the possibility that he is indeed familiar with this passage in Jer 20, and therefore that 4:12–21 could also allude to it. If Job’s vision really does allude to Jer 20, it is then all the more notable that Jer 20:14–18 itself offers the closest extant parallel to Job 3:3–11:

36

Cf. Chapter One, Section .A.II. DELL, Cursed, 110–12, cf. Job 12:4, 19:7 and 30:9. She also notes numerous other links between Job’s speeches and Jeremiah’s confessions, though some are stronger than others (106-117): cf. Jer 20:14–18 and Job 3:3–11; Jer 15:10-21 and Job 6:22-23; Jer 15:17–18 and Job 6:15, 28; 34:6 (a quotation of Job); Jer 15:19 and Job 13:22, 31:35; Jer 12:1 and Job 9:2–3; 21:7; Jer 12:4 and Job 22:14; Jer 11:20 and Job 19:27. 38 It is used with this sense in Jer 20:7; 48:26, 27, 39; Lam 3:14. Elsewhere it refers to laughter: Job 8:21; Ps 126:2; Prov 10:23; 14:13; Eccl 2:2; 7:3; 7:6; 10:19. 37

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Chapter 3: The Vision in the Development of the Book

Job 3:3–11

Jer 20:14–18

3

14

Let perish the day on which I was born, and the night that said, “A man was conceived.” 4 Let that day be darkness. Let God not seek it from above, nor light shine on it. 5 Let darkness and deep shadow reclaim it. Let clouds settle upon it; let them terrify it like the bitterness of the day.39 6 That night – let thick darkness seize it! let it not be included in the days of the year; let it not come into the number of months. 7 Yes, that night – let it be barren; let no pleasure come in it. 8 Let those who curse the sea40 curse it, those who are ready to rouse up Leviathan. 9 Let the stars of its twilight be dark; let it wait for light, but have none; let it not see by the eyelids of the dawn – 10 because the doors of my womb did not shut, and hide trouble from my eyes. 11 Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire?

‫ יאבד יום אולד בו‬3 ‫והלילה אמר הרה גבר‬ ‫ היום ההוא יהי חשׁך‬4 ‫אל־ידרשׁהו אלוה ממעל‬ ‫ואל־תופע עליו נהרה‬ ‫ יגאלהו חשׁך וצלמות‬5 ‫תשׁכן־עליו עננה‬ ‫יבעתהו כמרירי יום‬ ‫ הלילה ההוא יקחהו אפל‬6 ‫אל־יחד בימי שׁנה‬

Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed. 15 Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, saying, “A son is born to you, a boy,” making him very glad. 16 Let that man be like the cities that YHWH overthrew and did not spare; let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon, 17 because he did not kill me in the womb; and let my mother be my grave, and her womb forever pregnant. 18 Why did I come out at birth to see trouble and torment, and spend my days in shame?

‫ ארור היום אשׁר ילדתי בו‬14 ‫יום אשׁר־ילדתני אמי אל־יהי ברוך‬ ‫ ארור האישׁ אשׁר בשׂר את־אבי‬15 ‫לאמר ילד־לך בן זכר שׂמח שׂמחהו‬ ‫ והיה האישׁ ההוא כערים אשׁר־הפך יהוה‬16 ‫ולא נחם ושׁמע זעקה בבקר ותרועה בעת‬ ‫צהרים‬ ‫ אשׁר לא־מותתני מרחם‬17 ‫ותהי־לי אמי קברי‬ ‫ורחמה הרת עולם‬

39 This probably refers to an eclipse (so POPE, Job, 26, 29; CLINES, Job, 1.68. 70; J. GRAY, Job, 142; SEOW, Job, 344–46). Though many emend ‫ירי‬ ֵ ‫“( ִכּ ְמ ִר‬like bitterness”) to ‫ירי‬ ֵ ‫ ַכּ ְמ ִר‬, purportedly meaning “blackness” (so POPE, Job, 29; J. GRAY, Job, 12), this is not necessary. SEOW, Job, 344–46 notes that “a bitter day” is associated with an eclipse in Am 8:9–10, and is also regularly associated with suffering and grief (e.g. Isa 33:7; Jer 6:26; Ezek 27:30–31), allowing a double-entendre. 40 Emending ‫ יום‬to ‫ ים‬as a parallel to “Leviathan” (cf. Job 7:12; 26:12; Ps 74:13–14; 89:10–11[9–10]; Isa 27:1; 51:9–10); following POPE, Job, 26, 30; FISHBANE, Creation Pattern, 160–61; GREENSTEIN, Language, 654, who note an Aramaic inscription from Nippur that reads “I cast upon you the spell of Yamm and the spell of the Dragon Leviathan” (trans. from GREENSTEIN, Language, 654 n. 17; cf. MONTGOMERY, Aramaic, 121).

A. The Vision in Job 3–5

‫במספר ירחים אל־יבא‬ ‫ הנה הלילה ההוא יהי גלמוד‬7 ‫אל־תבא רננה בו‬ ‫ יקבהו אררי־י]ו[ם‬8 ‫העתידים ערר לויתן‬ ‫ יחשׁכו כוכבי נשׁפו‬9 ‫יקו־לאור ואין‬ ‫ואל־יראה בעפעפי־שׁחר‬ ‫ כי לא סגר דלתי בטני‬10 ‫ויסתר עמל מעיני‬ ‫ למה לא מרחם אמות‬11 ‫מבטן יצאתי ואגוע‬

159

‫ למה זה מרחם יצאתי לראות עמל ויגון‬18 ‫ויכלו בבשׁת ימי פ‬

Not only do these two passages share a great deal of specific vocabulary, as might be expected given their similar subject matter, but they also share a common overall structure and several specific expressions. Each begins with the curse on the day itself, using a first-person form of ‫ בו‬+ ‫ ילד‬+ ‫( יום‬Job 3:3a, cf. 3:3–5; Jer 20:14).41 Then each continues with a curse on the messenger who announces that a male has been conceived or born (Job 3:3b; Jer 20:15).42 Each concludes with a similar reason for the curse – because he did not die in the womb (Job 3:10; Jer 20:17) – and a similar question – why did he not die at birth? (Job 3:11; Jer 20:18).43 These parallels of language and structure are too close to be coincidental, and suggest direct dependence, rather than some kind of stock form of a “curse on the day of one’s birth,” of which we have no other examples.44 In that case there are good reasons to suspect that Job is dependent on Jeremiah rather than vice versa.45 First, Job’s account is much fuller, and adds several significant elements to Jeremiah, including a curse on the night of 41 Though Job uses imperfect forms of ‫ אבד‬and ‫ ילד‬while Jeremiah uses a participle of ‫ ארר‬and a perfect form of ‫ – ילד‬an important shift as we will see – this does not detract

from the structural parallel. 42 In Jeremiah the birth of a ‫ בן זכר‬is announced by “the man,” but in Job a ‫ גבר‬is announced by the personified “night”; the difference is significant for determining direction of dependence, as will be seen (cf. DELL, Cursed, 109; GREENSTEIN, Inspiration, 102–3). 43 These four structural parallels are emphasized by NEWSOM, Contest, 93. 44 DHORME, Job, clix-clxi; FOHRER, Hiob, PYEON, Intertextuality, 84–88; GREENSTEIN, Inspiration, 102–3; DELL, Cursed, 109–110; cf. HABEL, Job, 41, 103; contra TUR-SINAI, Job, 46–47 n. 1; ZUCKERMAN, Silent, 124, 125, who deny direct dependence even though the latter admits that “no passage could be structurally closer than this [Jer 20] to Job 3.” The only other extant allusions to such a curse are the heading in Job 3:1 and the brief lament in Jer 15:10a. The possibility of direct dependence is supported by the many other close parallels to Jeremiah’s confessions in Job’s speeches, noted above. 45 See most recently, DELL, Cursed, 106–117. If Job is dependent on Jeremiah, this implies a late date for the composition of the Joban dialogues, as Jeremiah’s confessions are already themselves widely thought to be among the latest elements in the book (cf. DELL, Cursed, 106 n. 3, with bibliography).

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conception (3:3b, 6–9), and an appeal to “those ready to rouse up Leviathan” (3:8).46 Greenstein also notes that Job’s curse is depersonalized and exaggerated compared to Jeremiah’s. Job eliminates all of the expected references to other people, replacing “the man” who announced the birth with “the night,” leaving his mother and father out entirely (3:3; cf. Jer 20:14–15), and even referring to “my womb” instead of “my mother’s womb” (3:10).47 Job also combines this with a broader anti-cosmic curse, reversing the very order of creation. A similar inversion appears in Jer 4:23–26, but there it is God who threatens to undo creation. Here it is Job who has the audacity to demand it, all so he can wipe out his own birth.48 It is much easier to imagine Job taking Jeremiah’s curse on his own birth and the man who announced it, and expanding it into a counter-cosmic malediction, than that Jeremiah would take Job’s universal curse and reduce it to such a comparatively tame complaint.49 If that is so, then an original placement of the vision at the end of ch. 3 would mean that the whole speech was framed by close parallels to Jeremiah’s confession. Where Jeremiah first accuses God of deceiving him (20:7– 10), then concludes with a curse on the day of his birth (20:14–18), Job first curses the day of his birth (3:3–11), then recounts a deceptive vision (4:12– 21).50 This inversion of order is in keeping with the pattern of the rest of Job 3, where Job repeatedly gives his shocking conclusions first, and only afterward provides the reasons for them.51 That is, Job first curses the day of his birth (3:3–9), then says why: “because [‫ ]כי‬the doors my womb did not shut, and hide trouble from my eyes” (3:10). Job first asks why he did not die at birth (3:11–12), then explains: “because [‫ ]כי‬then I would have lain down and be at peace. I would have slept and have rest” (3:13). He first asks why God gives light (3:20–23), then explains: “For [‫ ]כי‬my signing comes like my bread… because [‫ ]כי‬the dread that I dreaded comes upon me” (3:24–25). Therefore, not only does the vision fit Job’s complaint in ch. 3 stylistically, but it also clarifies its entire argument, and completes the inversion of Jer 20 begun in 3:3–11. Where Jeremiah first laments God’s deception, then curses his birth, Job first curses, and only at the end explains why: because God has already condemned him, as attested by the vision. 46 Cf. DELL, Cursed, 107–8; GREENSTEIN, Inspiration, 102; FISHBANE, Creation Pattern, 158–161. 47 GREENSTEIN, Inspiration, 103; cf. HABEL, Job, 41, 104–110; FISHBANE, Creation Pattern, 154–55. 48 On the link to Jer 4, cf. FISHBANE, Creation Pattern, 151–167; HABEL, Job, 104–5. 49 GREENSTEIN, Inspiration, 103. 50 Since he does not recognize that the vision itself alludes to divine deception, Greenstein overlooks this parallel, even though two of his primary arguments for the thesis that Jeremiah was an inspiration to the poet of Job are that the vision is Job’s and that Job 3:3– 12 is dependent on Jer 20 (GREENSTEIN, Inspiration, 98–110). 51 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 259, notes this feature of Job 3, but not the inversion of Jer 20.

A. The Vision in Job 3–5

161

III. Job 4–5 as a Response to the Vision Not only is ch. 3 better structured and thematically clearer if the vision originally appeared after 3:26, but Eliphaz’s speech also reads more smoothly without it. The vision’s current position introduces a sudden shift from a third-person depiction of the fate of the lion in 4:10–11, to a first-person account of a revelatory “word” in 4:12–16, with no obvious link between them. As Witte notes, this also disrupts the structural parallel between 4:7–11 and 5:1–5, as well as the larger shape of the speech.52 Without the vision, Eliphaz’s accounts of the destruction of the wicked (4:7–11) and the fool (5:1–7) form a natural pair with the protection of the lowly (5:9–16) and those who trust in God (5:17–26). The speech thus divides neatly in two with 5:8 at the center, heavily foregrounded by its distinctive alliteration on the name of God, ‫אל‬:53 4:2–6 4:7–11 5:1–7

Introductory Appeal Destruction of the Wicked Destruction of the Fool

5:8

Exhortation to Seek God

5:9–16 5:17–26 5:27

God’s Defense of the Lowly God’s Blessings for the Righteous Concluding Appeal54

Without 4:12–21 the speech is a straightforward affirmation that the wicked are destroyed and the righteous preserved.55 More importantly, all of the oddities seen in Eliphaz’s speech suddenly make sense if they originally followed the vision and responded to it, instead of crowding around on either side of it. In that case, Eliphaz’s insistence that the innocent do not perish but the wicked do in 4:7–11 is not self-contradictory, but a perfectly reasonable response to the conclusion that any can perish in 4:19–21. Similarly, Eliphaz’s challenge in 5:1 that any appeal to “the holy ones” is futile has often struck commentators as awkward, for why would Eliphaz appeal to a vision given by a “spirit” only to reject any appeal to “the holy ones” in the next 52

WITTE, Leiden, 72–73; cf. also GINSBERG, Patient, 109. Job 5:8 reads in Hebrew: ‫ ;אולם אני אדרשׁ אל־אל ואל־אלהים אשׂים דברתי‬cf. 8:5; alliteration noted by COTTER, Job 4–5, 211–12; NEWSOM, Contest, 109; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 248; NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, 130–31. 54 WITTE, Leiden, 73, comes closest to recognizing this structure, reconstructing an original form with 5:6–9+11 at the center: 4:2–6, 7–11, 5:1–5*, 5:6–9+11, 12–16, 17–21, 23–27. NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, 18–37, misses this, due to his elimination not only of 4:12–21 from the original book, but also of 5:3–5, 9–17, 22. 55 There are references to the preservation of the innocent in 4:6–7 and the destruction of the wicked in 5:12–14, but the focus in 4:8–5:7 is on the wicked, while in 5:9–26 it is on the righteous. 4:7 is a transitional verse from 4:2–6 to 4:8–11, tying them together. 53

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verse?56 But if the vision is not Eliphaz’s, 5:1 can be read without difficulty as a continuation of his rejection of it in 4:7–11.57 Finally, the admissions that any can suffer trouble in 5:6–7 and 5:17 can be read not as a compromise between two of Eliphaz’s own contradictory claims (in 4:7–11 and 4:17–21), but rather as a concession to the vision’s challenge, without abandoning his own traditional dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked. Still other details of the speech stand out when viewed from this perspective. For instance, Eliphaz begins by asking: “If one ventures a word to you [‫]דבר אליך‬, will you be impatient? But who can keep from speaking?” (4:2). Cotter notes that this parallels ‫ אלי דבר‬in 4:12 and takes this as an inclusio, by which Eliphaz structures his speech.58 But if this were an inclusio we would expect the expression to be repeated at the beginning and end of the speech, not the beginning and middle. Indeed, this is not a parallel but a reversal: Where the visionary spoke of “a word to me,” a first-person expression characteristic of Job,59 Eliphaz offers “a word to you,” a second-person expression characteristic of the friends.60 This contrast is more plausible as a response to a vision already announced by Job than as a way of anticipating Eliphaz’s own reception of a vision that he has not yet recounted. 56 Cf. HABEL, Job, 130; DRIVER AND GRAY, Job, 49; FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 324, 355–57; DHORME, Job, 62–63). HABEL, Job, 130, suggests that this is “a veiled rebuke of Job for summoning the forces of destruction to erase his origins (3:3–9),” but it is difficult to imagine how “the holy ones” could refer to “those who rouse Leviathan”! POPE, Job, 41–42, thinks 5:1 rejects any appeal to a personal god, but such an idea has not been raised by Job, so there is no obvious reason why Eliphaz would respond to it. SMITH, Vision, 455–46, discusses several similarly improbable explanations of 5:1. Some commentators simply delete it as a gloss (e.g. FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 357); others transfer it to precede 5:8 (e.g. DHORME, Job, 62–63; J. GRAY, Job, 160–61). 57 GINSBERG, Patient, 99; SMITH, Vision, 455–56; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 247–48; idem, Skin, 67. 58 COTTER, Job 4–5, 125; he also claims that the expression ‫ אבד‬+ ‫ מבלי‬in 4:11, 20 is another inclusio, but the use of ‫ אבד‬also in 4:7 and 9 undermines this (and cf. COTTER, Job 4–5, 136, 189, 197–99). 59 Job uses the precise expression ‫ אלי‬twice (21:5; 31:23), and attaches 1st Sg. suffixes to prepositions a full 100 times, across all of his speeches except ch. 24 (though in chs. 12 and 27 they are confined to the opening verses, and in 28:14 it is not Job but “the deep” and “the sea” who are quoted using such expressions). The friends never use the expression ‫אלי‬, and only attach a 1st Sg. suffix to a preposition 3 times, in 15:17; 20:2; 22:18, of which 20:2 is probably a paraphrase of Job. As noted in Chapter One Section A.I, the expression ‫ אלי דבר‬is characteristic of Jeremiah, introducing dozens of his prophecies. 60 The friends attach 2nd Sg. suffixes to prepositions 19 times, all of which refer to Job (4:2, 5; 5:19, 23, 27; 8:6, 10; 11:5, 6; 15:6; 15:8, 11; 18:4; 22:4, 25, 26; the exact expression ‫ אליך‬appears twice more, in 4:5; 15:8). Job, despite speaking more than twice as much as the friends, attaches a 2nd Sg. suffix to a preposition only 14 times (7:20; 10:3, 4, 13; 12:7, 8; 13:24; 14:3, 5; 17:3; 26:4; 42:2; none use the exact expression ‫)אליך‬, of which only 3 or 4 refer to the friends (12:7, 8; 26:4, perhaps 17:3). The rest refer to God.

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Additionally, the depiction of the “fool” in 5:2–5 takes on new resonance as a response to the vision, as the language used there can be read to imply not just ignorance and inner turmoil, but deception and divine wrath. In 5:2 Eliphaz quotes what is probably a proverbial saying,61 but his choice of words is notable: “For vexation slays the fool [‫]אויל‬, and jealousy kills the naive [‫]פתה‬.”62 The “fool” (‫ )אויל‬is not just someone who is ignorant; as used throughout Proverbs and elsewhere, a fool is often one who rejects God: “The fear of YHWH is the beginning of knowledge; fools [‫ ]אוילים‬despise wisdom and correction” (Prov 1:7).63 Still more interesting is the parallel use of ‫ פתה‬in 5:2b, as this is not a normal term for a “fool,” but rather the participle of a verb normally used of seduction, deception or apostasy.64 Job’s only other uses of the root refer to being attracted to a woman other than his wife (31:9) and being enticed to worship the sun or moon (31:26–28), both of which are considered punishable offenses. Likewise, Deut 11:16 uses the verbal form to describe those “seduced [‫ ]פתה‬into turning away, serving other gods and worshipping them.” Even more significantly, however, ‫ פתה‬is also the same term repeated three times each in 1 Kgs 22:20–22 and Jer 20:7–10, of YHWH’S deception of Ahab and Jeremiah respectively. That Eliphaz would use this particular term to describe the fool suggests that he has in view not merely one who is ignorant, but one who is deceived. Assuming that this is meant as a warning to Job (if not a description of Job!), it can therefore be seen to continue Eliphaz’s response to the vision, implying that he too sees it as deceptive, with Job as its victim. That the fate of such fools is death by “vexation” (‫ )כעשׂ‬and “jealousy” (‫ )קנאה‬supports such an allusion. Though usually understood to refer to the vexation and jealousy of the fool himself,65 there is good reason to think that Eliphaz actually has God’s judgment in view.66 The form ‫ כעשׂ‬occurs only in Job, where at least once it refers to God’s “vexation” (10:17),67 but as Cotter notes, it appears to be a by-form of ‫כעס‬, which is most often used of provok61

FOHRER, Hiob, 146–47; POPE, Job, 42; GREENSTEIN, Skin, 72; cf. Prov 12:16. As we have seen, quotations in Job are rarely verbatim; they are almost always shaped to the speaker’s current rhetorical purposes. 63 Similarly, e.g., Prov 10:8; 14:7; Ps 107:17; Jer 4:22. 64 Though the participle is used to describe a dove in Hos 7:11, the root typically refers to seduction (e.g. Job 31:9; Exod 22:15; Judg 14:15; Hos 2:16), enticement to crime (e.g. Prov 1:10; 16:29), deception (e.g. 2 Sam 3:25; 1 Kgs 22:20–22; Ps 78:36; Prov 24:28; Jer 20:7–10) or apostasy (e.g. Job 31:27; Deut 11:16) A more expected term for “fool” would have been ‫נבל‬, used in Job 2:10 and often elsewhere of the foolish or ungodly (e.g. Ps 14:1; 53:2[1]; 74:18, 22; Isa 32:6; cf. Deut 32:6; Ezek 13:3). 65 E.g. DRIVER AND GRAY, Job, 49; DHORME, Job, 57; POPE, Job, 42; HABEL, Job, 131. 66 This is how the rabbinic Targum understood it, translating ‫ כעס‬with ‫רגוז קיריס‬, “wrath of the Lord”; cf. TERRIEN, Job, 943; SEOW, Job, 428. 67 It also occurs in Job 6:2; 17:7. 62

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ing God to anger.68 For example, in Deut 32:16 ‫ כעס‬is paralleled with ‫ קנא‬to describe YHWH’s reaction to apostasy: “They made him jealous [‫ ]קנא‬with strange gods, with abhorrent things they provoked [‫ ]כעס‬him.”69 Likewise, Eliphaz’s term ‫ קנאה‬is also most often used of God’s jealous regard for his own honor.70 Eliphaz’s use of these two terms to describe the fate of the fool – not the fate of human beings in general – can therefore be seen to continue his response to the vision. If the “fool” is one who is deceived, his fate is divine judgment, just as the vision also implied. But where 4:21 concluded that mortals in general “die” (‫ ;מות‬Qal) without wisdom, Eliphaz retorts that it is the one who is deceived whom jealousy “kills” (‫ ;מות‬Hiph). In line with this, 5:1 can also be read as a warning against apostasy: “Call now, is there anyone who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn [‫ ”?]פנה‬This is not only a common concern in the Hebrew Bible generally, but one often described as ‫פנה‬, “turning” away from YHWH.71 For instance, Lev 19:4 commands: “Do not turn [‫ ]פנה‬to idols or make gods of cast metal for yourselves: I am YHWH your God.” Deut 30:17–18 warns that “if your heart turns away [‫ ]פנה‬and you do not hear, and are led astray to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you will surely perish [‫]אבד‬.” A similar usage appears in Job 36:21, in which Elihu warns Job, “Do not turn [‫ ]פנה‬to iniquity,” which in context is clearly tied to rejecting the discipline of God (cf. 36:17–23).72 In that light, Eliphaz’s use of ‫פנה‬ in 5:1 can also imply abandoning God by relying on something else, and 5:3– 68 COTTER, Job 4–5, 205, cf. also JOO, Provocation, 19–25, who notes that when used of human beings, ‫ כעס‬tends to refer to inner turmoil, not any outward actions, but when it is used of God it typically indicates that which triggers a divine reaction, namely punishment (21). The verb occurs 54 times in the Hebrew Bible, meaning “be angry” in the Qal, but “provoke (to anger)” in the Pi and Hiph (e.g. Deut 4:25; 9:18; 31:29; Judg 2:12; 1 Kgs 14:9; Ps 78:58; 106:29; Isa 65:3; Jer 7:18–19; Ezek 8:17; Hos 12:15). The noun occurs another 21 times of vexation caused by bad treatment, or of provocation or taunting (e.g. Deut 32:19, 27; 1 Kgs 15:30; 21:22; Ps 85:5; Ezek 20:28; cf. HALOT 1.491; CDCH 181). 69 Deut 32 uses ‫ כעס‬several times of Israel provoking YHWH by turning to other gods (cf. 32:19, 21). As will be discussed more fully in Chapter Four, Section B.I, there are other links to Deut 32 in Job 5 as well, most notably the parallel between Job 5:18 and Deut 32:39 (on the latter, cf. GREENSTEIN, Parody, 72-74). 70 E.g. Deut 29:19[20]; Isa 26:11; 42:13; 59:17; Ezek 5:13; 16:38, 42; 23:25; 36:5–6; 38:19; Zeph 1:18; 3:8;. The adjective ‫ קנא‬is used similarly in, e.g., Exod 20:5; 34:14; Num 25:11; Deut 4:24; 5:9; 6:15; 32:16; as is the verb ‫ קנא‬in e.g. Deut 32:21; 1 Kgs 14:22; Ps 78:58; Ezek 8:3; 39:25; Joel 2:18; Zech 1:14; 8:2. Cf. HALOT 2.1109–1111. JOO, Provocation, 24, also notes the parallel use of these two roots in Deut 32:21; Job 5:2 and Ps 78:58. 71 E.g. Job 36:21; Lev 19:4, 31; Deut 30:17; 31:18, 20; Ps 40:5[4]; Isa 53:6; 56:11; Jer 2:27; 32:33; Ezek 29:16; Hos 3:1. In a few other cases it indicates the opposite, either turning back to God, or God turning back to his people (e.g. Isa 45:22; Ezek 36:9). 72 Elsewhere in Job, the verb is used only in mundane contexts: In 6:28 and 21:5 Job asks his friends to turn to him (i.e. look at him), while 24:18 refers to a treader turning to his vineyard.

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5 accordingly spells out the consequences of such apostasy, including the curse on the fool’s home, the failure of his children, and the destruction of his livelihood.73 Where 4:19 spoke of mortals in general “crushed” (‫ )דכא‬before or like a moth, Eliphaz says that such a fate awaits the children of the fool, who “are crushed [‫ ]דכא‬in the gate, and there is no one to deliver them” (5:4b). Those who turn against God need fear such a fate, not all mortals.74 In short, the whole of 5:1–5 can be read as a challenge not to turn away from God, complementing the contrast between the innocent and the wicked in 4:7–11 with a more specific warning of the consequences of apostasy. All of this can then be read as a direct response to the vision: No, mortals do not “perish forever without notice,” but God does reserve such a fate for any “fool” who would turn away from him on the word of such a deceptive spirit. But that is by no means the end of the matter, as Eliphaz clearly hopes for something better in Job’s case. After conceding in 5:6–7 that all mortals may suffer “trouble,” he concludes in 5:8 that Job should turn to God, and the rest of the chapter spells out the blessings that will surely follow if he does so. Here as well, links with the vision are evident, but as noted in Chapter Two, they contrast with rather than building on the vision’s imagery. Most notably, against the vision’s conclusion that lowly mortals suddenly perish, Eliphaz insists that God raises up the lowly (5:11), and delivers the needy (5:16). He then affirms that if only Job will accept God’s discipline he will not fear destruction, and certainly will not die (5:20–21). Therefore, while Eliphaz’s speech makes little sense as the original frame for the vision, it reads very naturally as a response to it. Not only does he seem to acknowledge the hints of deception and judgment in 4:12–16, applying them to the “fool,” by no means to himself, but he emphatically rejects the vision’s conclusion in 4:19–21, insisting that only the wicked perish, while the lowly are protected and the faithful are blessed. That message is thoroughly disrupted by the vision’s present location, but it assumes that vision has indeed already been introduced into the book, in Job’s first speech. 73 Note the similar use of ‫ שׁוב‬in 15:13, “you turn [‫ ]שׁוב‬your spirit against God.” This is also followed by an account of the destruction that awaits he who “vaunts himself against the Almighty” (15:25). That Eliphaz claims specifically to curse the fool (‫ )קבב‬in 5:3 is may also be significant, as there is a broad overlap between the curses Eliphaz lays on home, children and livelihood, and those established for forsaking the covenant in Deut 28:15–19 (though ‫ קבב‬is not the term employed there, but rather ‫ארר‬. Job 3:8 uses the two terms together, as does Balaam in Num 22). 74 Is this depiction meant to describe Job, whose own children perished, or is it only a tone-deaf warning of what might happen if Job turns against God? Both are possible, and the answer depends largely on how one understands the relation between the prologue and poetry. If ‫ פתה‬really does allude to the deception of the vision, this could also refer to what Job has already experienced, but the overall tone of the speech suggests rather a warning not to rely on such deception, not a condemnation for having done so.

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An original placement of the vision at the end of ch. 3 rather than in the middle of ch. 4 would also resolve an oddity in the current structure of the dialogues. Greenstein notes that ch. 3, in its present form, is the only speech of Job that is shorter than the response that follows it, while Eliphaz’s speech in chs. 4–5 is by far the longest by any of the three original friends.75 Normally Job’s speeches are at least as long, and often twice as long, as those which follow them, while chs. 3–5 reverse that pattern, with Eliphaz speaking nearly twice as long as Job. But if the vision originally appeared in ch. 3 instead of ch. 4, the two speeches would be roughly equal in length, 38 and 36 verses respectively, which is comparable to the relation between Eliphaz’s final speech (ch. 22; 30 verses) and Job’s which precedes it (ch. 21; 34 verses). This would also balance out the larger shape of the book, with a mediated theophany to Job at the beginning, and an unmediated one at the end. In summary, the vision is stylistically, thematically and structurally much more at home at the end of ch. 3 than in the middle of ch. 4. It maintains the same style of first-person address as Job uses in ch. 3 and elsewhere, makes similar use of tri-cola, employs comparable body imagery to describe the speaker’s own experience, and reflects the same fearful and confused tone. The vision’s allusions to divine deception and inescapable condemnation clarify the “dread” and “turmoil” that have come upon Job in 3:24–26, fitting the pattern seen throughout the speech, wherein the explanations always follow the complaints. An original placement after 3:26 also balances out the structure of the chapter by providing a corollary to the curse in 3:3–9 and explaining its motivation. Indeed, the two form an effective frame for the chapter as a whole, beginning with a counter-creation curse, wishing that the “day” and “night” of Job’s birth would “perish” (3:3), and concluding with a vision of universal condemnation which declares that all mortals “perish” “between morning and evening” (4:20).76 Both the curse and the vision find their closest parallels in the “confession” in Jer 20, but they dramatically exaggerate it, laying the groundwork for much of what Job will argue in subsequent chapters.

75 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 260. Job 3 is 26 verses while chs. 4–5 are 48 verses long. By contrast, chs. 6–7 (Job) are 51 verses, while ch. 8 (Bildad) is 22 verses. Chs. 9–10 (Job) are 57 verses, while ch. 11 (Zophar) is 20 verses. Chs. 12–14 (Job) are 75 verses, while ch. 15 (Eliphaz) is 35 verses. Chs 16–17 (Job) are 38 verses, while ch. 18 (Bildad) is 21 verses. Only after that point do the speeches correspond more closely in length: ch. 19 (Job) is 29 verses, while ch. 20 (Zophar) is 29 verses; ch. 21 (Job) is 34 verses, while ch. 22 (Eliphaz) is 30 verses. The pattern then completely breaks down in chs. 23–31, where Bildad is the only friend to speak, and only for 5 verses, while the remaining 9 chapters are all attributed to Job, followed by 6 chapters from Elihu (32–37). 76 Might the latter itself even be a final allusion to the reversal of creation? Contrast the repeated refrain in Gen 1, “and there was evening, and there was morning, the… day.”

A. The Vision in Job 3–5

167

Meanwhile, such a placement frees Eliphaz’s own speech from selfcontradiction, leaving it a straightforward response to the vision. His otherwise consistent dichotomy between the innocent and the wicked, his offering Job “a word to you,” warning him not turn to “the holy ones,” and promising him blessing if only he will seek God alone, all make good sense as a rebuff to Job’s invocation of such a subversive vision from an unidentified “spirit.” Finally, this would neatly resolve the unusual lengths of Job’s and Eliphaz’s speeches, and explain the visions’ prominence in the rest of the dialogues: It is not simply an odd digression amidst Eliphaz’s otherwise straightforward appeal to traditional wisdom; it is central to Job’s complaint, warranting the vigorous response of each of his friends.77 IV. Was The Vision Accidentally Displaced? If the vision truly was the original conclusion to Job 3, then why does it now appear in ch. 4? Greenstein suggests that the passage as a whole could have been displaced by the accidental reversal of two manuscript pages. As he notes, 4:12–21 and 4:1–11 are essentially equal in length (76 and 75 Hebrew words, respectively), so if the vision originally preceded 4:1 it is conceivable that they could have each filled consecutive pages of a papyrus scroll. If both pages came loose from the scroll before or while copying, then in principle they could have been put back together in the wrong order accidentally.78 The length of the two passages is within the range of column sizes found at Qumran.79 For example, the fragment 4QJoba is reconstructed with a column size of only 16 short lines, spanning approximately 12 verses, right around the size Greenstein’s theory requires.80 Though 4QJoba is a leather scroll, with at least two columns per page,81 literary papyri with columns as small as 77 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 260–61. Without accepting an attribution to Job, KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 57, also notes the central role that the vision plays in the ensuing dialogues, especially the way it introduces the dominant theme of “righteousness” (‫)צדק‬. 78 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 260–62. He proposes that the scroll was probably papyrus for two reasons: First, because this seems to have been the most common writing material in the Persian period, including for wisdom literature (261; following BLENKINSOPP, Sage, 21). Second, unlike parchment scrolls that were sewn together at the seams, papyrus scrolls were connected with adhesive, and therefore much more prone to come apart. 79 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 260. He does not provide any details for this claim, but it appears to be accurate. Though we lack conclusive evidence for the typical size of a papyrus biblical scroll (TOV, Scribal Practices, 78, 80), the leather scrolls found at Qumran and elsewhere include some as small as 7–10 lines per column (see the chart in TOV, Scribal Practices, 84–85). Generally speaking, the longer the manuscript the larger each individual column (78, cf. 98), with many longer biblical scrolls including 30, 40 or even 60 lines per column, but there are exceptions (cf. 87–89). 80 The format of 11QtgJob is larger. Portions of 38 columns survive, which imply a column length that varied between 15 and 18 longer lines (DJD XXIII, 85–86). 81 See DJD XVI, 171–78.

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12 lines have been reconstructed.82 If such a manuscript had only one column per page, it may be possible that 4:12–21 and 4:1–11 could have each filled consecutive pages, as Greenstein suggested, allowing an exchange. Nevertheless, accepting such an explanation would require several significant coincidences. First, both of these passages would have to have filled an entire column exactly, with no overlap, in order to be exchanged without additional disruptions. That is not impossible, but it means assuming a great deal about the size of the original manuscript, and would already be a significant coincidence. Second, the scroll can only have included one column per page, which is rare among extant biblical scrolls.83 Third, the scroll would have to come apart on both sides of both manuscript pages for such a swap to occur.84 Finally, the parallels Greenstein notes in chs. 24–27 are not unbiased evidence, as they also involve a paraphrase of the vision in ch. 25. Though he avoids the circular argument that 25:2–6 is also displaced from Job’s speech,85 the fact that the closest parallel to the vision’s displacement involves a direct reinterpretation of the vision’s message leaves it highly unlikely that these shifts are accidental. On the contrary, it seems much more likely that the anomalies in chs. 3–4 and those in the third speech cycle are not coincidental at all, but intentional. To see this, we turn now to consider the role of the vision in the second half of the dialogues, where we find several quite different responses to those seen in the earlier speech cycles.

B. The Vision in the Third Speech Cycle and the Elihu Speeches B. The Vision in the Third Speech Cycle and the Elihu Speeches

Once we move to the third speech cycle, the clear patterns seen in the earlier speeches suddenly break down, but the way they do so is significant. Not only is the familiar sequence of speakers disrupted after Eliphaz’s speech in ch. 22, but the clear stylistic and theological contrasts between Job and the friends also evaporate. Rarely is it noted, however, that the treatment of the vision in these chapters also differs significantly from that seen earlier in the book, and those differences offer a mirror image to the anomalies just seen in 82

E.g. 4QpapSa [4Q255]; cf. TOV, Scribal Practices, 89–90. Though admittedly we only have good evidence regarding leather scrolls – few literary papyrus scrolls have survived intact; cf. TOV, Scribal Practices, 80–82. 84 Unlike a codex, in which such an exchange could theoretically occur with the disengagement of only one seam (the page on which either 4:12–21 or 4:1–11 appeared), in a scroll at least three separate seams must come apart at once: that between what is now 4:12–21 and what preceded it, that between 4:12–21 and 4:1–11, and that between 4:1–11 and what followed it. This would imply significant damage to the manuscript, and the fact that there are no other obvious dislocations in the first half of the book makes this unlikely. 85 Contra TORCZYNER, Hiob, 181; TUR-SINAI, Job, 376–77; GINSBERG, Patient, 102–4. 83

B. The Vision in the Third Speech Cycle and the Elihu Speeches

169

chs. 3–4.86 Just as the vision’s own placement in Eliphaz’s speech contradicts his usual style and perspective, while fitting much more naturally with Job’s, so the attribution of 26:2–14 to Job contradicts his own earlier style and conclusions from the vision, but fits closely with Bildad’s truncated speech that immediately precedes it. Meanwhile, Bildad’s own speech now seems to reflect a softened perspective on the vision, quoting 9:2b and paraphrasing 15:14–16 without overt critique. The result is an apparent inversion of Job’s and the friends’ perspectives on the vision no less startling than that implied by the vision’s own attribution to Eliphaz. The account of the wicked attributed to Job in 27:13–23 also contradicts his earlier claims and parallels the friends’ rejections of the vision. But just as strange is that these shifts are only temporary. Eliphaz’s and Job’s speeches in chs. 22 and 23 still maintain perspectives comparable to those seen throughout chs. 4–21, and while ch. 24 and 27:7–12 are more debatable, 27:2–6 and chs. 29–31 also sound like the old Job. Finally, despite the shifts in chs. 24–27, Elihu goes on to respond to the vision as a reflection of Job’s earlier perspective, though he interprets it quite differently than the friends had done. The third speech cycle, therefore, not only flips the script from the earlier speeches, but even stands out from those that follow. Only here and in 4:12–21 is the vision used positively by one of the friends, and only here does Job himself back away from the subversive conclusions he elsewhere draws from it. Why he does so remains highly controversial in recent scholarship, but before we turn to the major explanatory models that have been proposed to clarify these shifts, we must first set out clearly how the vision itself is treated in these final speeches of the dialogue. I. The Vision in the Third Speech of Eliphaz Eliphaz’s final speech, like his first two, makes abundant use of the vision’s language and imagery, but again it does so to insist on a clear dichotomy between the innocent and the guilty.87 Tossing aside his earlier restraint and innuendo, Eliphaz now directly accuses Job of gross wickedness (22:4–11) and once again uses imagery from the vision to describe Job and the wicked, not himself. For instance, the term ‫ פחד‬was used by Job (e.g. 3:25) and the 86 Even those who appeal to the third speech cycle to explain the anomalous placement of the vision in ch. 4 generally imply that the vision is interpreted more or less the same in ch. 25 as in 4:12–21 itself. A few others do note differences, e.g. CROOK, Cruel God, 113; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 57–58 n. 3. 87 As before, Eliphaz parallels a surprising number of terms from the vision in ch. 22, but none appear in self-descriptions nor accounts of human beings in general. Instead, virtually all of them appear in descriptions of Job or the wicked: ‫( אישׁ‬4:13; 22:8), ‫רב‬ (4:14; 22:5), ‫( פחד‬4:14; 22:10), ‫( פנה‬4:15; 22:8, 26), ‫( שׁמע‬4:16; 22:27), ‫( אלוה‬4:17; 22:12, 26), ‫( צדק‬4:17; 22:3), ‫( גבר‬4:17; 22:2), ‫( שׂים‬4:18, 20; 22:22), ‫( בית‬4:19; 22:18), ‫( עפר‬4:19; 22:24), ‫( יסוד‬4:19; 22:16), ‫( דכא‬4:19; 22:9),‫( יתר‬4:21; 22:20).

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visionary (4:14) to describe themselves. Eliphaz had used it to describe the wicked in 15:21, but now he applies it directly to Job: “Therefore traps are all around you, and sudden dread [‫ ]פחד‬terrifies you” (22:10). Once again, the kind of “dread” that fell upon the visionary is by no means what Eliphaz experiences, but rather the result of Job’s wickedness.88 As in his first speech, however, Eliphaz contrasts this dire fate (22:15–20) with the blessings that will surely come if only Job will repent: “If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored, if you remove injustice from your tents” (22:23; cf. 22:21– 30).89 That is, despite his warnings, Eliphaz still maintains that righteousness is possible, and leads to blessing. The speech concludes in 22:29–30: 29

When they are brought low, you will say “Courage!”90 because he rescues the humble. 30 He will deliver even those not innocent;91 and they will escape by the purity of your hands.

Where the vision and Job’s speeches portray human lowliness as proof of their inability to find acceptance with God, Eliphaz sees lowliness as the necessary state that leads to salvation, much as he did in 5:9–27. Where the vision concluded that lowly humans are quickly destroyed, Eliphaz concludes that the lowly are saved.92 Despite this, a few have suggested that 22:22 could be a positive allusion to the vision, where Eliphaz urges Job to “Receive instruction [‫ ]תורה‬from his

88

HABEL, Job, 335, emphasizes that Eliphaz traps Job in his own words here, noting the usage in 3:25 but not that the same term was also used in 4:14. SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 119, notes that the direct condemnation of Job in ch. 22 contradicts 4:6, so there has definitely been a shift in Eliphaz’s approach (cf. 124, following HARTLEY, Job, 325–26). But this need not imply a later hand, as there is a clear development in the friends’ thinking regarding Job’s own innocence. Though they remain convinced from start to finish of the dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked, they only slowly come to entertain the possibility that Job might indeed be among the wicked, and only state that conclusion outright in Eliphaz’s final speech. 89 HABEL, Job, 335, compares this to a prophetic summons to repentance, e.g. Jer 4:1–2, “If you return, O Israel, says YHWH, if you return to me and remove your abominations from my presence, and do not waver, and if you swear, ‘As YHWH lives!’ in truth, in justice, and in uprightness, then nations shall be blessed by him, and by him they shall boast.” 90 Following HABEL, Job, 332; SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 117. 91 The Hebrew is ‫אי־נקי‬. The usual translation follows the meaning of ‫ אי‬as “not” in post-biblical Hebrew. But since this is a surprising thing for Eliphaz to say, some instead read it as “whoever is innocent,” which sense might be paralleled by Prov 31:4 (e.g. FOHRER, Hiob, 352; CLINES, Job, 2.547; though Clines prefers simply deleting the particle; cf. the critique by SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 117–18 n. 358). 92 HABEL, Job, 343–44, and SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 145, note that 22:30b can be seen to offer Job a kind of intermediary role on behalf of those “not innocent,” which Job will indeed perform in the epilogue, on Eliphaz’s behalf.

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171

[=God’s] mouth, and set his words [‫ ]אמריו‬in your heart.”93 In light of the overarching contrast between the fate of the wicked and the righteous, however, it is much more likely that this refers to the same traditional wisdom to which Eliphaz appealed in 5:27, 15:9–11 and 15:17–19. That is, what Eliphaz offers is not the mysterious vision, which threatens indiscriminate destruction, but rather the divine wisdom passed down from the ancestors, which promises blessing for the righteous (22:21). A more plausible allusion to the vision is in 22:2-3, but in context this again appears to be a response to Job: 22:2–4 (Eliphaz) 2

Can a man be of use to God? Can even the wise be of use to him?94 3 Does it bring joy to the Almighty if you are righteous, or does he gain if your ways are blameless? 4 Is it because of your fear that he reproves you, and enters into judgment with you?

‫ הלאל יסכן־גבר‬2 ‫כי־יסכן עלימו משׂכיל‬ ‫ החפץ לשׁדי כי תצדק‬3 ‫ואם־בצע כי־תתם דרכיך‬ ‫ המיראתך יכיחך‬4 ‫יבוא עמך במשׁפט‬

4:17 (The Vision) 17

Can a mortal be righteous before God [or: more righteous than God], or can a man be pure before [or: purer than] his maker?

‫ האנושׁ מאלוה יצדק‬17 ‫אם מעשׂהו יטהר־גבר‬

7:20–21 (Job) 20

If I sin, what do I do to you, Watcher of humanity? Why have you made me your target? Why have I become a burden to myself? 21 Why do you not pardon my transgression and pass over my iniquity? For now I will lay down in the dust; you will search me, but I will not be.

‫ חטאתי מה אפעל לך‬20 ‫נצר האדם‬ ‫למה שׂמתני למפגע לך‬ ‫ואהיה עלי למשׂא‬ ‫ ומה לא־תשׂא פשׁעי‬21 ‫ותעביר את־עוני‬ ‫כי־עתה לעפר אשׁכב‬ ‫ושׁחרתני ואינני פ‬

The questions in 22:2–3 resemble those in 4:17 and parallel the terms ‫ גבר‬and ‫צדק‬, apparently implying that human righteousness is not of any use to God. This would seem to be a plausible inference from 4:17, and so an apparently positive use of the vision. But is it Eliphaz’s inference? Similarly to 20:2–3, there are good reasons to think this is a paraphrase of Job rather than a summary of Eliphaz’s own perspective.95 First, Job himself has said things that 93 E.g. SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 139. By contrast, HABEL, Job, 342, takes this to refer to accepting wisdom from God. 94 Or “for the wise is only of use to himself” (Cf. SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 115, 145). 95 TORCZYNER, Hiob, 152; TUR-SINAI, Job, 336–38. He takes the whole of 22:2–18 as a summary of Job’s views, rather than a set of quotations and responses as it is usually inter-

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resemble this, most notably in 7:20–21, so it is a plausible claim for Eliphaz to attribute to Job. Though Job focused on the negative side, asking what harm his sins do to God, Eliphaz’s inversion – asking what God gains from Job’s righteousness – is comparable. Second, Eliphaz goes on to paraphrase and refute other claims of Job later in the chapter, most explicitly in 22:13, But you say [‫]ואמרת‬, “What does God know? Can he judge through deep gloom? 14 Clouds hide him so he cannot see as he moves about the circle of the heavens.” 15 Will you keep the ancient path, which the wicked trod? 13

This quotation is explicit, and might have 21:22–26 in view, even though Job does not spell out the conclusion as Eliphaz does. Job did not deny that God knows, only that God carries out judgment. Eliphaz attributes the stronger assertion to Job, then questions his innocence in the next breath, just as he seems to question Job’s integrity in 22:4–5, “Is it for your fear that he reproves you, and enters into judgment with you? Is not your wickedness great, and is there no end to your injustice?” This is not a conclusion to 22:2–3; it is a challenge to it, just as 22:15 is a challenge to 22:13–14. The point in context appears to be that Job is guilty (cf. 22:6–9), and therefore that God’s punishment is warranted and not excessive (cf. 22:10–20). That is, against the claim that sin and righteousness make no difference to God, Eliphaz responds that God justly punishes sin, but restores the righteous. Scherer also notes that the end of the chapter directly counters 22:2–3 with a depiction of restored communion with God. This not only implies that God does take joy in human righteousness, but may even conclude with an explicit affirmation of its usefulness to others.96 If Scherer is correct that the conclusion of the speech is a direct contradiction of 22:2–3, it is highly unlikely that the latter is intended to summarize Eliphaz’s own views, so its affinity with the vision is merely another case of the friends’ rejecting the vision’s perspective along with Job’s. Therefore, the whole of ch. 22 fits with the treatment of the vision in Eliphaz’s earlier speeches, linking its imagery to Job, and responding to its conclusions with a clear contrast between the fates of the wicked and the righteous. But this is the last speech of the friends to maintain this approach. We will soon see that Bildad’s speech in ch. 25, at preted (336–344). This is not plausible (rightly, SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 122 n. 362), but it is likely that 22:2–3 reports the first of several quotations in the speech. Even HABEL, Job, 337–38, recognizes 20:3 as a summary of Job’s complaint, though he sees 20:2 as a “didactic saying” (337). 96 SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 145, refers to “der massive Gegensatz zwischen v. 2 und v. 30, die gemeinsam die Rede mit einem antitypischen Rahmen umsäumen” (cf. 144–145). He concludes that 22:2b claims that the wise benefits only himself, while 22:30 concludes that it is even possible to save others by one’s innocence.

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173

least in its present form, implies a more positive embrace of the vision, while Job’s speeches on chs. 26 and 27 seem to challenge it. Before turning there, however, we first need to step beyond the third speech cycle to the Elihu speeches. As we will see, these are actually closer to the presentation of the vision seen in chs. 3–22 than to that seen in chs. 25–27. II. The Vision in the Elihu Speeches Despite their late position in the book and uncertain textual history, the Elihu speeches reflect the vision’s language and imagery at various points, and always in direct response to Job.97 The best-known example is in 33:15, which directly quotes 4:13, again combining it with language drawn from Job’s own reflections on the vision: 33:15 (Elihu)

4:13 (The Vision)

7:13–14 (Job)

15

13

13

In a dream, a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on mortals, while they sleep on their beds,

‫ בחלום חזיון לילה‬15 ‫בנפל תרדמה על־אנשׁים‬ ‫בתנומות עלי משׁכב‬

In troubling thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on mortals,

‫ בשׂעפים מחזינות לילה‬13 ‫בנפל תרדמה על־אנשׁים‬

When I said, “My couch will comfort me, my bed will ease my complaint,” 14 then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions,

‫ כי־אמרתי תנחמני‬13 ‫ערשׂי ישׂא בשׂיחי משׁכבי‬ ‫ וחתתני בחלמות‬14 ‫ומחזינות תבעתני‬

This is a nearly verbatim quotation of 4:13 – the only difference is the singular “vision” (‫ )חזיון‬in place of the original plural (‫ – )חזינות‬framed with two expressions from Job’s complaint in 7:13–14. First, “in a dream” (‫)בחלום‬ parallels Job’s “with dreams” (‫)בחלמות‬, using a term that occurs in Job only 97

The following argument is not affected by whether we accept the frequent conclusion that the Elihu speeches are a secondary addition to the book (e.g. DHORME, Job, xcviii-cx; POPE, Job, xxvii-xxviii; DE WILDE, Hiob, 2–5; NEWSOM, Contest, 201; J. GRAY, Job, 66– 67; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 62–64; BALENTINE, Job, 17–18, 511–12, though the last focuses on the final form. PILGER, Erziehung, passim, and Lauber, Weisheit, passim, argue that the Elihu speeches were added in several layers), or attribute them to the original poet (e.g. GORDIS, Job, xxxi-xxxii, 546–552; HABEL, Job, 36–37; SEOW, Job, 31–37; idem, Elihu’s Revelation, 253–271; even CLINES, Job, 2.708–9, considers the Elihu speeches original, though he relocates them before ch. 28; LONGMAN, Job, 25, dismisses the question as irrelevant to his focus on the final form of the book). Everything said below would be equally valid whether or not Elihu was a constituent part of the original dialogues. What is important is that the Elihu speeches seem to have been composed earlier than whenever the “third speech cycle” reached its final form (so IRWIN, Elihu, 40; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 63–66), as will be argued below.

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in 7:14, 20:8 and 33:15. Then, Elihu closes with the term “bed” (‫)משׁכב‬, which is confined to 7:13 and 33:15, 19 in the book.98 Most commentators recognize that Elihu quotes 4:13 here,99 but they overlook how this also links the “vision” to Job’s experience, much as the earlier friends did. But unlike them, Elihu does consider this vision to be a viable means of revelation, as he explicitly describes it as a mode of divine speech in 33:14: For God speaks in one way, and in two he does not perceive it.

The “two” modes of unrecognized revelation are then described as “a vision of the night” in 33:15–18 and “pain upon his bed” in 33:19–22.100 The latter almost certainly alludes to Job’s own suffering, repeating the reference to “his bed” (‫ )משׁכבו‬and tying it to “his bones” (‫ ;עצמיו‬33:19), similarly to 7:13–15 (and 4:14).101 That being the case, the corresponding reference to a singular “dream” and “vision” in 33:15 probably also alludes to Job’s own vision by tying 4:13 to 7:14. Similar to the practice seen throughout the friends’ speeches in chs. 4–22, Elihu’s blending of expressions from 7:13–15 with 4:12–21 suggests that both are attributed to Job. 98

GREENSTEIN, Extent, 256–57, notes that Elihu repeatedly quotes Job (e.g. 34:3 quotes 12:11; 34:5 cites 9:15 and 27:2; 37:5 quotes 9:10), and only quotes the friends where they are paraphrasing Job (e.g. 34:12 alludes to 8:3, which appears to paraphrase of Job [cf. 8:2], while 34:9 and 35:3 are similar to 22:2, where Eliphaz appears to do the same. Elihu directly attributes the latter to Job with explicit citation formulae). 99 BUDDE, Hiob, 196; DRIVER AND GRAY, Notes, 242; HESSE, Hiob, 179 n. 203; WITTE, Leiden, 174 n. 4; PILGER, Erziehung, 66, delete 33:15b on the grounds that it disrupts the bi-colic structure of the surrounding text. But the disruption can indicate that a quotation has occurred, without requiring that it is secondary. The preceding allusion to 4:17 in 33:12 (see below) supports the conclusion that 33:15 is also original. CLINES, Job, 2.694–85, and IRWIN, Elihu, 41, accept that it is original, noting Elihu’s tendency to quote from the earlier dialogues throughout this speech. SEOW, Elihu’s Revelation, 265–66, notes that 33:16b could also be another allusion to 7:14, emending ‫“( יַחְתּ ֹם‬he seals”) to ‫י ְ ִח ֵתּם‬, “he terrifies” (supported by OG, Targ and others; emendation also accepted by, e.g., DHORME, Job, 494; POPE, Job, 250; FOHRER, Hiob, 454; HARTLEY, Job, 441; CLINES, Job, 2.695). POPE, Job, 250, instead sees 33:16b as an allusion to 4:14. Again, the two are not mutually exclusive. In 33:17 Elihu also uses the term ‫ גבר‬found in 4:17 and a number of Job’s responses to the vision. 100 The two are clearly parallel, each concluding that the purpose of such experiences is to spare the recipient from “the pit” (33:18, 22). Cf. also 33:23–20, which adds a “third” mode of divine speech (33:29), through a “representative” (33:23). 101 CLINES, Job, 2.734, notes that 33:19–22 draws on Job’s own accounts of his suffering, but he does not mention this specific link (cf. also IRWIN, Elihu, 41; BALENTINE, Job, 548). SEOW, Elihu’s Revelation, 266, denies this, claiming (without details) that this account does not fit Job’s case. But even if the details are not a precise match, there are enough overlaps to leave it probable that Elihu has Job himself in view, especially as Seow himself accepts that 33:15–18 alludes to Job’s visions in 7:13–14 (SEOW, Elihu’s Revelation, 265–66).

B. The Vision in the Third Speech Cycle and the Elihu Speeches

175

Clines recognizes allusions to 4:13 and 7:13–14 here,102 but he claims that Elihu only answers Job’s complaint indirectly, “by showing how God does indeed speak to humans generally.”103 But if Elihu has Job’s own experience in view, then the point is more direct: God has answered Job, but Job has misunderstood him, complaining instead of repenting.104 Both modes of revelation in 33:14–22 are presented as means by which God has already spoken to Job, and Elihu interprets both of them as a means of divine discipline, intended to bring about repentance: 17

to turn a person from his deeds, and keep pride from a man. 18 He spares his soul from the Pit, and his life from traversing the River.

While Eliphaz also spoke of suffering as a means of divine discipline (5:17– 26), Elihu’s novel conclusion is that visions like the one reported in 4:12–21 can serve the same purpose.105 This is a very different response to the vision than either Job or his friends maintained, but again it seems to assume that it is Job’s vision, not Eliphaz’s. Fishbane also recognizes that Elihu alludes to 4:12–21 and 7:13–14 together here, and concludes that “By weaving together these two strands, Elihu poignantly reminds Job that he already has had visions – and though he regards them as horrific and contentless, he is wrong.”106 But while Fishbane is correct that this seeks to reinterpret Job’s visions, the assumption that Job sees them as merely “horrific and contentless” overlooks Job’s own dependence on the vision’s conclusions in 7:13–21.107 The direct reversal of 4:12 in 33:12 implies that Elihu has the same conclusions in view: 33:12 (Elihu)

4:17 (The Vision)

But in this you are not right. I will answer you: God is greater than any mortal.

Can a mortal be righteous before God [or: more righteous than God], or can a man be pure before [or: purer than] his maker?

102

CLINES, Job, 2.731; so also FISHBANE, Job, 95–96. CLINES, Job, 2.728, cf. 727–28. 104 CLINES, Job, 2.731, is correct, however, that Job’s demand for an answer from God was not a wish for a dream of this type, but for a public pronouncement of his innocence (following ANDERSEN, Job, 249; similarly, PILGER, Erziehung, 145). By suggesting that God has already answered Job, Elihu dismisses Job’s wish for vindication, which the vision assuredly does not provide. 105 Cf. WAHL, Elihu, 5. 106 FISHBANE, Job, 96, cf. 95–96; similarly, SEOW, Elihu’s Revelation, 265–66. 107 By contrast, PILGER, Erziehung, 144–46, claims that unlike Eliphaz, Elihu does not identify any concrete revelatory content for such visions, which are simply referred to generally. This is equally unlikely. 103

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‫הן־זאת לא־צדקת אענך‬ ‫כי־ירבה אלוה מאנושׁ‬

‫האנושׁ מאלוה יצדק‬ ‫אם מעשׂהו יטהר־גבר‬

This repeats every word from 4:17a except the interrogative prefix ‫ה־‬, but it directly reverses the terms of the comparison. Where the vision asked whether a mortal (‫ )אנושׁ‬is righteous (‫ )צדק‬before or compared to God (‫)מאלוה‬, Elihu declares that Job is not right (‫)צדק‬, for God (‫ )אלוה‬is greater than a mortal (‫)מאנושׁ‬.108 That this immediately precedes Elihu’s affirmation that God speaks through “a vision of the night,” confirms that he has the specific vision in 4:12–21 in view, and seeks to reinterpret it.109 Elihu does so in two ways: First, he reinterprets the message of the vision itself. Where the question in 4:17 was ambiguous, but understood by Job to imply that God disregards human righteousness, Elihu reverses the terms of its comparison and reframes it as a direct statement: “God is greater than any mortal” (33:12). All ambiguity eliminated, the vision is now interpreted as a straightforward affirmation of divine supremacy.110 Second, where the vision itself seems to allude to traditions of divine deception, and Job interprets it as proof of God’s intent to destroy him (e.g. 7:13–21; 9:2–14), Elihu interprets it as a means of divine discipline, meant to bring about repentance and save from death (33:14–18). This is no generic reference to revelatory dreams, but a direct response to Job’s interpretation of the vision, as confirmed by the rest of 33:8–13, where Elihu paraphrases these very aspects of Job’s complaint: 8

Surely, you have spoken in my hearing, and I have heard the sound of your words: 9 “I am pure, without transgression; I am clean, and have no iniquity. 10 See, he finds occasions against me, he considers me his enemy. 11 He puts my feet in stocks, he watches all my paths.” 108 The reversal is another case of Seidel’s Law, confirming that 33:12 is a quotation. Yet it is also more than that, as it involves a reversal of sense and not just syntax. HABEL, Job, 467, and NEWSOM, Contest, 208, take this as an allusion to 9:2–4, and therefore a response to Job, but there Job did not repeat the key preposition ‫מן‬, which Elihu draws from 4:17. Elihu is indeed responding to Job, by responding to the vision. 109 SCHMID, Schriftdiskussion, 257–58, recognizes that 33:14–18 is an orthodoxizing reinterpretation of the vision, which reframes it as an affirmation of God’s supremacy and a means of divine discipline (cf. also NEWSOM, Contest, 211–16). What Schmid and Newsom miss is that this very reinterpretation assumes that the vision is Job’s, just as the friends assumed throughout chs. 4–22. YHWH himself also makes a similar reversal in 40:8 (See Chapter Five, Section A.II). IRWIN, Elihu, 43, contrasts the emphasis on God’s transcendence in 4:12–21 with Elihu’s claim that such visions offer “moral guidance and warning” (43). 110 This eliminates both the ambiguity of the preposition ‫מן‬, which can only be read as a comparative in 33:12, and the larger ambiguity inherent to the interrogative form in 4:17.

B. The Vision in the Third Speech Cycle and the Elihu Speeches

177

12

But in this you are not right. I will answer you: God is greater than any mortal. 13 Why do you contend against him, saying, “He answers none of a man’s words”?

Elihu recognizes that Job both claims to be innocent and charges God with pursuing him anyway. As we have seen in Chapter Two, these are the very claims that stand at the heart of Job’s own responses to the vision in chs. 6–7, 9–10 and 12–14 – though he nuances them better than Elihu implies.111 Indeed, “he watches all my paths” resembles nothing so strongly as Job’s complaints in 3:23 and 7:17–21, both of which are tightly linked to the vision itself.112 Therefore when Elihu goes on in the next verse to “answer” Job with a direct reversal of 4:17, this is unlikely to be a coincidence; it assumes that the vision is Job’s. The inversion of 4:17 is then followed in 33:13 by a further paraphrase from Job’s complaints, this time echoing 9:3, “If he wishes to contend with him, he will not answer him once in a thousand.”113 Thus, the whole passage can be read as a repudiation of Job’s interpretation of the vision as a sign of God’s condemnation, replacing it with a more comfortably traditional interpretation.114 Where Job views both his own suffering and the vision as proof of his unjust condemnation, Elihu reinterprets both as means of divine discipline, intended for his good, not his harm. This is not the only place Elihu alludes to the vision in this way. In fact, he even directly attributes a citation of 4:17 to Job in 35:2: 35:2 (The Narrator)

4:17 (The Vision)

Do you think this is just? You say, “I am more righteous than God.” [or: I am righteous before God.”]

Can a mortal be righteous before God [or: more righteous than God], or can a man be pure before [or: purer than] his maker?

‫הזאת חשׁבת למשׁפט‬ ‫אמרת צדקי מאל‬

‫האנושׁ מאלוה יצדק‬ ‫אם מעשׂהו יטהר־גבר‬

Unlike 33:12, which inverted 4:17 to present Elihu’s own interpretation, here Elihu maintains the terms of the comparison in 4:17, and attributes the senti111 HABEL, Job, 465–67, and CLINES, Job, 2.728–29, emphasize that Elihu obscures the nuances of Job’s argument. Where Job admitted that he was not sinless, but insisted that he has done nothing to warrant God’s hostility, Elihu turns this into a claim to perfection. 112 Elihu also echoes 4:19 and/or 10:9 in 33:6, “See, I am like you to God; I also was pinched from the clay [‫]חמר‬.” WEISS, Bible from Within, 431, thinks an allusion to 10:9 is more likely than to 4:19, but the two are not mutually exclusive, as they share a common perspective on human frailty. Given the other allusions to both the vision and Job’s speeches, either or both could be in view in 33:6. 113 NEWSOM, Contest, 208. 114 Cf. SCHMID, Schriftdiskussion, 257–58.

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ment to Job.115 Yet once again what was a question is reframed as an assertion, eliminating the ambiguity of the vision itself, while aligning it with Job’s subsequent complaints.116 As before, Elihu follows this with further paraphrases of Job, which also reflect his conclusions from the vision, in 35:3–8: 3

For you ask what use it is to you, “How am I better off than if I had sinned?” 4 I will reply to you and your friends with you. 5 Look at the heavens and see; observe the clouds, which are higher than you. 6 If you sin, what do you accomplish against him? And if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him? 7 If you are righteous, what do you give to him; and what does he receive from your hand? 8 Your wickedness affects men like you, and your righteousness, human beings.

Though only 35:3 is explicitly introduced as a citation of Job – even though Job attributed this sentiment to the wicked in 21:14–15117 – Elihu also seems to be quoting Job in 35:6, as Job has said precisely this in 7:20–21,118 while 35:7 is reminiscent of 22:2–3:119 115 PILGER, Erziehung, 100–101, and LAUBER, Weisheit, 171–73, attribute chs. 33 and 35 to different hands. Even if this is so, however, the two reflect compatible approaches to the vision, and both assume that it is Job’s. 116 Though in this case the ambiguity of the preposition ‫ מן‬is retained, the interrogative in 4:17 is not, asserting a positive answer rather than implying a negative one, as 4:17 itself probably does. NEWSOM, Contest, 208–9, 210, recognizes that this quotes 4:17, which Job also affirms in 9:2, without recognizing that this explicitly attributes the language of 4:17 (not that of 9:2) to Job, even while reflecting the interpretation that Job himself affirms in ch. 9. PILGER, Erziehung, 195, also recognizes this as a paraphrase of Job’s claims in chs. 9, 10, and 27:1–6, rephrased in terms in 4:17. Surprisingly, LAUBER, Weisheit, 385, 387, suggests allusions to 4:17–21 and 7:17–20 in 35:5–7, but misses the link between 35:2 and 4:17. He instead links 35:2–3 to 9:15–16, 20–24, 29–32; 10:2–3; 23:1–17 and 24:1–17, even though he admits that there are no strong verbal links to any of them. 117 CLINES, Job, 2.771, 796, rightly notes that Job is caught in a bind at this point, as he does deny that piety or sin reliably lead to blessing or destruction (e.g. 9:22; 21:7), but he also describes the wicked as those who say that there is no profit in piety. Does he agree? Job does not say, and it is well that he does not, as this double bind is precisely that set up for him by the Satan’s question in 1:9, “Does Job serve God for nothing [or for no reason; ‫ ”? ]חנם‬If Job says there is a benefit, then the Satan was correct, but if Job denies such a benefit and rejects God, the Satan was again correct. Only by denying that righteousness is any benefit while remaining committed to God can Job escape the trap, but does he do so? 118 DELITZSCH, Hiob, 48 n. b; FISHBANE, Job, 96–97; LAUBER, Weisheit, 380–81. 119 DHORME, Job, cii-ciii, 530–32; LAUBER, Weisheit, 387–88, though he assumes that 22:2–3 reflects Eliphaz’s position.

B. The Vision in the Third Speech Cycle and the Elihu Speeches

35:6–7 (Elihu)

7:20–21b (Job)

22:2–3 (Eliphaz)

6

20

2

If you sin, what do you accomplish against him? And if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him? 7 If you are righteous, what do you give to him; and what does he receive from your hand?

‫ אם־חטאת מה־תפעל־בו‬6 ‫ורבו פשׁעיך מה־תעשׂה־לו‬ ‫ אם־צדקת מה־תתן־לו‬7 ‫או מה־מידך יקח‬

If I sin, what do I do to you, Watcher of humanity? Why have you made me your target? Why have I become a burden to myself? 21 Why do you not pardon my transgression and pass over my iniquity?

‫ חטאתי מה אפעל לך‬20 ‫נצר האדם‬ ‫למה שׂמתני למפגע לך‬ ‫ואהיה עלי למשׂא‬ ‫ ומה לא־תשׂא פשׁעי‬21 ‫ותעביר את־עוני‬

179

Can a human being be of use to God? Can even the wise be of use to him? 3 Does it bring joy to the Almighty if you are righteous, or does he gain if your ways are blameless?

‫ הלאל יסכן־גבר‬2 ‫כי־יסכן עלימו משׂכיל‬ ‫ החפץ לשׁדי כי תצדק‬3 ‫ואם־בצע כי־תתם דרכיך‬

Against Job’s complaint that nothing human beings do affects God’s treatment of them, Elihu responds that wickedness affects other mortals (35:8).120 This is the negative counterpart to Eliphaz’s conclusion in 22:30 that innocence benefits others, and as there, it seems to be a rejection of Job’s interpretation of the vision. Elihu also attributes the same views to Job in 34:7–11: 7

What man is like Job, who drinks derision like water, 8 who goes in company with evildoers and walks with the wicked? 9 For he said, “A man gains nothing by his delight in God.” 10 Therefore, listen to me, you who have sense: Far be it from God to do wickedness, or the Almighty to do injustice. 11 For he repays a man’s deeds to him, and according to a man’s ways he lets it befall them.

Not only does Elihu attribute the conclusion in 34:9 to Job, but in 34:7 he also describes Job using Eliphaz’s paraphrase of the vision in 15:16.121 Elihu’s reaffirmation that God repays the wicked according to their deeds reflects a similar perspective to ch. 22, which also explicitly contrasts the right-

120

This suggests that Elihu also understands 22:2–3 to be a paraphrase of Job (cf. TORHiob, 152; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 257). 121 On the parallel to 15:16, cf. DHORME, Job, 511; HABEL, Job, 481; LAUBER, Weisheit, 382–83, 384. For the case that 15:12–16 paraphrases the vision as the “words” of Job, see Chapter Two, Section B.II. CZYNER,

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eous and the wicked.122 Unlike Eliphaz, however, Elihu rejects Job’s interpretation of the vision without repudiating the vision itself. Throughout his speeches, therefore, Elihu seems to assume that the vision is Job’s, and that it is revelatory, but directly challenges Job’s subversive conclusions from it. In fact, the narrator even introduces Elihu’s whole reason for speaking with another critical paraphrase of 4:17: 32:2b (The Narrator)

4:17 (The Vision)

[Elihu] was angry at Job because he justified himself rather than [or: before] God.

Can a mortal be righteous before God [or: more righteous than God], or can a man be pure before [or: purer than] his maker?

‫באיוב חרה אפו‬ ‫על־צדקו נפשׁו מאלהים‬

‫האנושׁ מאלוה יצדק‬ ‫אם מעשׂהו יטהר־גבר‬

Just like Elihu did in 35:2, but unlike in 33:12, here the narrator maintains the terms of the vision’s comparison, but restructures it as a statement rather than a question, and directly attributes the sentiment to Job.123 Surprisingly few acknowledge that this alludes to 4:17, but the lexical parallel is clear, and anticipates the fuller responses in chs. 33 and 35, with which it is compatible.124 Both 32:2 and 35:2 link the vision’s language with Job’s complaints of divine injustice, and reject Job’s interpretation. Therefore, even as late as the Elihu speeches the vision is still attributed to Job, though Elihu responds to it differently than the earlier friends did. Elihu agrees with the friends that God distinguishes the righteous from the wicked, but he does not reject the vision out of hand as the friends did throughout chs. 4–22. Instead, Elihu affirms that such visions are a legitimate mode of divine revelation, insisting that their purpose is not to condemn but to compel repentance, which leads to restoration. Elihu directly attributes the phrasing of 4:17 to Job, though he eliminates its ambiguity by turning it into an assertion instead of a question, while he himself affirms the inverse. He paraphrases Job’s conclusions from the vision that God disregards his innocence and re122 NEWSOM, Contest, 209, emphasizes that Eliphaz’s ultimate goal is to convince Job to “be close to God and at peace” (22:21), while Elihu’s goal is “to dismantle the cogency of the legal model Job has urged,” by arguing that Job’s very insistence that God is unaffected by human sin and righteousness undermines Job’s calls for a divine answer. What Newsom overlooks is that in both cases it is Job’s conclusion from the vision that is being paraphrased in these denials that God cares about human righteousness. 123 Like ch. 35, PILGER, Erziehung, 49–52, also takes 32:2–5 as secondary. This is possible, but her claim that it represents a different perspective than ch. 33 is not compelling. Though 32:2 and 35:2 maintain the terms of the comparison from 4:17, while 33:12 inverts them, the former are attributed to Job, while the latter represents Elihu’s own view. 124 DHORME, Job, 473, notes the parallel, but makes nothing of it.

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181

fuses to pardon his transgressions, insisting that both Job’s vision and his suffering should lead him to repentance. He also reinterprets the message of the vision itself as an affirmation of divine supremacy in 33:12, an interpretation that we will now see is also reflected in the third speech cycle, but with a significant difference. While Elihu assumes that the vision is Job’s even as he reinterprets it, in chs. 25–27 we see a similar reinterpretation that undermines the vision’s link to Job, incorporating it into the argument of one of the three friends and attributing to Job a dismissal of it. III. The Vision in Job 25 Despite the fact that both the earlier speeches of the friends and the later speeches of Elihu consistently link the vision to Job, Bildad’s lengthy paraphrase of 4:17–19 in 25:4–6 is not attributed to Job, nor submitted to any obvious critique.125 Instead, like Elihu, Bildad also reinterprets the vision as an affirmation of divine sovereignty: 25:2–6 (Bildad) 2

Dominion and dread are with him; he makes peace in his heights. 3 Is there any number to his troops? Upon whom does his light not arise? 4 How then can a mortal be righteous with God? How can one born of a woman be clean? 5 If even the moon does not shine, and the stars are not pure in his sight; 6 how much less a mortal, who is a maggot, and a human being, who is a worm!

9:2 (Job)

15:14–16 (Eliphaz)

Truly I know that it is so; how then can a mortal be righteous with God?

14

7:5 (Job) My flesh is clothed with maggots and clods of dust; my skin hardens, and breaks out.

What is a mortal, that he can be clean, that one born of a woman can be righteous? 15 If he does not trust his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight; 16 how much less one who is abhorrent and corrupt, a man who drinks injustice like water!

125 The only potential allusion to the visionary context in 4:12–16 is the use of ‫ פחד‬in 25:2, which is tied to God’s supremacy rather than the visionary’s own dread.

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‫ המשׁל ופחד עמו‬2 ‫עשׂה שׁלום במרומיו‬ ‫ הישׁ מספר לגדודיו‬3 ‫ועל־מי לא־יקום אורהו‬ ‫ ומה־יצדק אנושׁ עם־אל‬4 ‫ומה־יזכה ילוד אשׁה‬ ‫ הן עד־ירח ולא יאהיל‬5 ‫וכוכבים לא־זכו בעיניו‬ ‫ אף כי־אנושׁ רמה‬6 ‫ובן־אדם תולעה פ‬

‫ אמנם ידעתי כי־כן‬9:2 ‫ומה־יצדק אנושׁ עם־אל‬ ‫ לבשׁ בשׂרי רמה וגושׁ‬7:5 ‫עפר עורי רגע וימאס‬

126

‫ מה־אנושׁ כי־יזכה‬14 ‫וכי־יצדק ילוד אשׁה‬ ‫ הן בקדשׁ]י[ו לא יאמין‬15 ‫ושׁמים לא־זכו בעיניו‬ ‫ אף כי־נתעב ונאלח‬16 ‫אישׁ־שׁתה כמים עולה‬

The overall structure of 25:4–6 resembles 4:17–19 and 15:14–16, and repeats the final clause of 15:15, ‫לא־זכו בעיניו‬. But 25:4 begins with a verbatim quotation of 9:2, and Bildad introduces several significant changes in 25:5–6. In place of “his servants” and “his messengers” in 4:18, or “his holy ones” and “the heavens” in 15:15, Bildad refers to “the moon” and “the stars” in 25:5. He also deviates from both the vision itself and Eliphaz’s paraphrase in 15:16 in describing human beings as maggots and worms, eliminating Eliphaz’s explicit reference to injustice. This uses another term, ‫רמה‬, that occurs only in Job’s own speeches in the book (7:5; 17:14; 21:26; 24:20). These changes suggest that Bildad is not just invoking the vision, but reinterpreting it. Greenstein appeals to the friends’ tendency to quote Job rather than one another to argue that 25:4–6 does so as well.127 The fact that this begins with a quotation of 9:2 supports this, just as the similar method in 15:14–16 suggested an attribution to Job.128 Nevertheless, the context here is very different than in 15:14–16. In ch. 25 Bildad includes neither a citation formula, nor any overt critique of the vision’s conclusions. Just the opposite: The lowliness of humanity before God in 25:4–6 is central to the speech as a whole. Witte observes that 25:2–6 forms a tightly structured chiasm:129 2

Dominion and dread are with him; he makes peace in his heights. 3 Is there any number to his troops? Upon whom does his light not arise? 4 How then can a mortal be righteous with God? How can one born of woman be clean? 5 If even the moon does not shine, and the stars are not pure in his sight; 6 how much less a mortal, who is a maggot, and a human being, who is a worm!

126

Following the Qere. GREENSTEIN, Extent, 256; cf. also SMITH, Vision, 459. 128 And this may indeed have been the original intent of the speech, as will be argued, but its present form gives no explicit indications of this. 129 WITTE, Leiden, 60. 127

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The poles of the contrast are the depiction of God “in his heights” and human beings lower than “worms” and “maggots.”130 The center is the implicit denial of human righteousness with God, framed by a clear contrast between God’s own “light” and the comparative dimness of the moon and stars. This is no dismissal of the vision; it uses it positively to affirm God’s greatness and human lowliness. What Witte misses is that this makes explicit what neither the vision itself nor Job affirms: That human beings are not just lowly, but deserve the low esteem God has for them. To call a mortal “a maggot” and “a worm” (and not simply as a reflection of how God treats them, but as they actually are) implies a distaste and humiliation not evident in the original vision, nor in Job’s interpretations of it.131 This does not accept the conclusion that mortals are destroyed without distinction, but it certainly reflects a much lower view of human nature than is evident anywhere else in the friends’ speeches, and undermines their clear dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked.132 This is an even more significant reinterpretation of the vision than that seen in the Elihu speeches, but it is presented without overt critique, and integrated into a hymnic acclamation of God’s supremacy. That this speech positively embraces the vision’s depiction of human lowliness as a corollary of divine supremacy is reflected not only in the spatial contrast between 25:2 and 25:6, but also in the contrast between God’s light in 25:3 and that of the moon and stars in 25:5. This offers a very different perspective than 4:18 itself, and indeed one more in line with the “naturalistic” reading that Pinker attempted to apply to the vision itself.133 Pinker “Maggot” (‫ )רמה‬refers several times in Job to those that eat the bodies of the dead (7:5; 17:14; 21:26; 24:20; also Isa 14:11; it is also used of maggots in rotting food in Exod 16:24); Job complains in 7:5 that God has left him in a such a state that he is eaten by ‫רמה‬, but Bildad here affirms that a mortal is a ‫רמה‬. “Worm” (‫ )תולעה‬appears in this form only in Isa 14:11, again parallel with ‫( רמה‬related forms, referring to worms in diverse contexts, appear in Exod 16:20; Deut 28:39; Ps 22:7[6]; Isa 41:14; 66:24 [of the dead]; Jon 4:7). 131 Cf. NEWSOM, Contest, 144–46, who suggests that the vision’s expression of “divine loathing” is startling in the speeches of the friends. In fact, the vision itself implies no such distaste. Job introduces such a concept in chs. 7 and 9–10, but only in the paraphrases of the vision in 15:14–16 and 25:4–6 is this directly incorporated into the vision’s message itself. What Job meant as a reflection of how God has made him abominable through his suffering, 15:16 and 25:6 apply to human nature generally. But in 15:16 this is a paraphrase of Job’s views, which Eliphaz rejects, whereas in 25:6 it seems to be presented as Bildad’s own view of human nature, a significant shift. 132 BAUMGÄRTEL, Hiobdialog, 95 n. 62, 146, CROOK, Cruel God, 113, KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 57–58 n. 3, and PILGER, Erziehung, 194 n. 140, all recognize this contradiction, and assign ch. 25 to a later hand; CAESAR, New Thesis, 441–42, reads it synchronically as a sign of Bildad’s acquiescence to Eliphaz’s vision that he had previously rejected. 133 Cf. PINKER, Job 4,18, 500–519; the problem is his assumption that 4:17–19 is fully consistent with 25:4–6, when they clearly diverge in a number of significant details. 130

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rightly observes that “angels” are nowhere else condemned in the Hebrew Bible,134 but contrasts between God’s greatness and the heavenly bodies are widespread.135 But if 4:18 really does affirm God’s mistrust or condemnation of “his servants” and “his messengers,” it may well be that Bildad deliberately replaces that subversive claim with the much less problematic assertion that even the moon and stars are dim compared to God’s own light. Such phrasing would surely have been much less controversial than the vision’s own, and well in line with the friends’ perspective. The same is also true of the depiction of human beings as worms and maggots in 25:6 when compared to the uncompromising images of violent destruction seen in 4:19–21. This represents a distinct shift in the friends’ perspective, but it is not unprecedented in the wider Hebrew Bible.136 Finally, it should not be overlooked that the only link to the original visionary context is the use of ‫ פחד‬in 25:2, but whereas 4:14 used it to signify the dread that befell the visionary; here it is a reflection of God’s power, which he uses to impose “peace” (‫)שׁלום‬. Therefore, by quoting – and positively reinterpreting – both Job from 9:2 and Eliphaz’s quotation of Job in 15:14–15, this speech offers a much less subversive way of reading the vision than that seen earlier in the book. Bildad is here attributed a speech that accepts the lowliness of humanity, significantly modifying the friends’ earlier dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked. Yet unlike Job’s own complaints that humanity’s lowliness is a result of God’s antagonism, this speech interprets it as an unproblematic corollary to God’s supremacy. Here, for the first and only time, one of the friends draws extensively on the vision’s language to describe the entire human race, without critique or dismissal, but also without embracing any of the more disturbing conclusions that Job himself drew from the vision in the first speech cycle. This is a major shift, but it is only one of several across the third speech cycle. HABEL, Job, 369, notes this shift. Even PINKER, Job 4,18, 517 n. 72, does acknowledge that, “It is possible that Bildad [in 25:4–6] attempts to politely correct Eliphaz’s theologically problematic exaggeration [in 4:20–21].” 134 PINKER, Job, 4,18, 508–512; see Chapter One, Section B.I above. 135 Such images most often appear in theophanic contexts, either affirming that God’s light will render the heavenly bodies unnecessary (e.g. Isa 60:19–20) or more often, promising their extinguishing as a sign of the terror of God’s appearance (e.g. Isa 13:10; Ezek 32:7; Joel 2:10; 4:15[3:15]; Hab 3:11). Other passages do not minimize the brightness of the sun, moon and stars, but clearly affirm that they are subordinate to God (e.g. Ps 148:3– 4; Jer 31:35). Surprisingly, Pinker himself does not appeal to these parallels, and none of the commentaries pay any attention to the issue. 136 In Ps 22:7[6] the psalmist describes himself as a worm (‫ )תולעת‬as a sign of his humiliation, but in Isa 41:14 Jacob is described in the same way as a means of emphasizing God’s comparative greatness (noted by, e.g. FOHRER, Hiob, 376). There the point was to encourage trust in YHWH, not to condemn humanity.

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IV. The Vision in Job 26 It is not just that ch. 25 attributes a positive embrace of the vision to one of the friends, but that several statements attributed to Job in chs. 24, 26, and 27 also undermine his own earlier usage of the vision. The speech in ch. 26 is especially noteworthy. It begins with a brief rejoinder in 26:2–4, addressed to a singular “you,” which Job uses elsewhere almost exclusively to refer to God, not to his human interlocutors.137 Job then proceeds with a kind of hymn to God’s power (26:5–13).138 The whole speech lacks the characteristic style of Job’s earlier speeches: There are no references to his own suffering, body, or personal experience, and the only first-person form is the closing plural “we perceive,” which serves to minimize human knowledge compared to God’s power.139 The opening challenge to the “wisdom” of a singular interlocutor in 26:3 and the question in 26:4 – “whose breath comes out from you?” – also resemble the friends’ speech introductions more than Job’s.140 137 GRUBER, Jewish Study Bible, 1501–2, 1537. Of Job’s own 89 2nd Sg. verbs, 43 2nd Sg. suffixes and one 2nd Sg. pronoun, only three other passages refer to the friends: 12:7–8, 16:3, and 21:3. The examples in 12:7–8 parody the friends’ appeals to ancestral wisdom with an appeal to the birds and beasts. This can be read as an implicit quotation (cf. GORDIS, Job, 137–38; idem, Book of God, 186–87; HABEL, Job, 213; GRUBER, Jewish Study Bible, 1520, and see below), and the same may be the case in 16:3 as well, as it echoes 8:2 and 15:2 and is surrounded by 2nd pl. forms, including a direct claim that “I also could speak like you” in the very next verse (16:4; GRUBER, Jewish Study Bible, 1526, recognizes this as an echo of 15:2–3). This is probably not the case in 21:3, but there it could simply be a textual error, as it is also surrounded by 2nd pl. forms, and the LXX, Syr. and Vul. all have a plural verb (so e.g. CLINES, Job, 2.505; J. GRAY, Job, 293). Otherwise, only one of Job’s many 2nd Sg. expressions does not refer to God (17:14, where he addresses “the pit”). Job refers to the friends with 33 2nd Pl. verbs, 32 2nd Pl. suffixes and 4 2nd Pl. pronouns. 138 Though 26:5–14 never actually names God explicitly, referring simply to “him” throughout (cf. KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 60), WOLFERS, Orphan Chapter, 387–88, goes too far when he takes this as evidence that God is not the subject at all, and reads the whole chapter as Job’s sarcastic repudiation of the vision. If he were right, though, that would only prove a still greater contradiction between this chapter and Job’s earlier speeches, which regularly build on the vision to support his arguments. Note that 26:5–11 and 26:14a–b are missing from the OG, one of the most extensive minuses in the book. 139 Of the 8 other times Job uses 1st Pl. verbs, 6 of which are in explicit quotations, none includes Job with his human companions, as 26:14 seems to do: 9:32 (Job and God); 17:16 (Job and his hope); 19:28 (a quotation of the friends, “you say”); 21:14–15 (4 verbs, all in a quotation of the wicked, “they say”); 28:22 (a quotation of Abaddon and Death). The friends refer to themselves with 1st Pl. verbs 6 times (5:27; 8:9; 15:9; 18:2–3). 140 The friends use 69 2nd Sg. verbs, 80 2nd Sg. suffixes and 6 2nd Sg. pronouns to refer to Job. Unlike Job, they only use 2nd Pl. forms twice, in 18:2–3, both to refer to Job. This may also be a textual error, as the LXX and 11QtgJob have singular verbs (so e.g. CLINES, Job, 1.404; J. GRAY, Job, 263). On the assumption that the vision is Eliphaz’s, 26:4 is sometimes taken as evidence that 26:2–4 is indeed original to Job, and represents his dis-

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Meanwhile, the imagery in 26:5–14 is similar to that which Job used in ch. 9, but is here put to an entirely different end. In that earlier speech, Job used imagery of creation and divine combat to accuse God of excessive violence and to emphasize his own powerlessness. But in ch. 26 there is no hint of critique or accusation in the face of God’s violence and power.141 The fear and trembling that these induce in “the shades” (26:5) and “the pillars of heaven” (26:11) are portrayed as the awe-inspiring result of God’s “rule,” not a reflection of the speaker’s own state of mind.142 Where ch. 9 linked God’s smiting of “the helpers of Rahab” (9:13) with anti-creation imagery (9:5–8), here the striking of Rahab (26:12) is linked to positive creation (26:7–13). The differing tone is seen especially in the repeated references to “his anger” in 9:5, 13, which are absent in ch. 26,143 and the conclusion in 26:13 that God makes the heavens “fair” (‫)שׁפרה‬.144 The framing of these accounts is also significant: Where Job’s earlier speech complained that “I cannot perceive him” (‫ )בין‬in 9:11 and concluded that God will not listen to “my words” (‫ )דברי‬in 9:14, in 26:14 he concludes by dismissing the “whisper of a word” (‫ )שׁמץ דבר‬that we know, and asking “who can understand [‫ ]בין‬the thunder of his might.” Both deny the human ability to “perceive” God, but 9:11 portrays this as a reflection of their inability to withstand God’s injustice, while 26:14 presents it as a suitable response to God’s superiority. Not only does the speech as a whole lack the usual characteristics of Job’s style, therefore, but it seems to deliberately counter the accusations in ch. 9, missal of Eliphaz’s vision as just paraphrased by Bildad (e.g. WOLFERS, Orphan Chapter, 387), but this most closely parallels Bildad’s own dismissal of Job’s words in 8:2, and Eliphaz’s in 15:2, which Job already imitated in 16:3. JANZEN, Job, 177, and BALENTINE, Job, 386, suggest that 26:4 could allude to lying spirits, as in 1 Kgs 22, which could potentially be another reflection of the vision’s own allusions to divine deception. 141 HABEL, Job, 366; even NEWSOM, Job, 516, who is inclined to maintain the present form of the third speech cycle, admits that ch. 26 lacks the ironic tone of ch. 9. Contra WITTE, Leiden, 150, 168, 183, who claims that 9:2–14 is also secondary and hymnic. 142 Parallel vocabulary and imagery includes reference to the stretching out (‫ )נטה‬of the heavens (9:8; 26:7), the trembling of the pillars (‫ )עמדים‬of the earth or the heavens (9:6; 26:11), and the striking of (the helpers of) Rahab (9:13; 26:12). Cf. WITTE, Leiden, 150. HABEL, Job, 370–71, notes that the claim that God’s power extends even to the depths of Sheol also undermines Job’s earlier depictions of Sheol as a place of escape from God’s reach (e.g. 3:13–19; 14:13). 143 The closest parallel to this in 26:5–14 is the reference to “his rebuke” (‫ )גערה‬in 26:11, but this is paralleled in a similar context in Ps 18:16[15] // 2 Sam 22:16. 144 As BALENTINE, Job, 391, notes, this is a very positive image. Though this feminine form is a biblical hapax, the root also appears in Gen 49:21 and Ps 16:6, where it clearly has positive connotations. In part for that very reason, it is often emended; for instance TUR-SINAI, Job, 383–84 and POPE, Job, 185–86, emend the clause to read “by his wind he puts the sea in a bag,” pointing to a reference to the “bag” or “net” (sapāru) that Marduk used to capture Tiamat in Enuma Elish IV.41, 95 (cf. CAD 15.161). As CLINES, Job, 2.624, notes, this is a stretch.

B. The Vision in the Third Speech Cycle and the Elihu Speeches

187

setting God’s power in a much more positive light.145 Insofar as ch. 9 was itself a sustained meditation on the vision, this implies a shift in Job’s perspective no less stark than that attributed to Bildad in ch. 25. This is confirmed in the final verse, where Job compares this awe-inspiring display of God’s power with the mere “whisper of a word” that we can hear of him: Though this is commonly treated as no more than a summary of the display of God’s power described in 26:5–13,146 it instead contrasts this “whisper” with “the thunder of his might,” and is better seen as an allusion to the vision: 26:14 (Job)

4:12, 16 (The Vision)

Behold, these are the outskirts of his ways; and what a whisper of a word do we hear of him! But who can understand the thunder of his might?

12

147 ‫ הן־אלה קצות דרכיו‬14 ‫ומה־שׁמץ דבר נשׁמע־בו ורעם‬ ‫ מי יתבונן ס‬148‫גבורתו‬

Now to me a word is stolen, my ear receives a whisper of it…. 16 It stands still, but I cannot recognize its appearance. A form is in front of my eyes – silence, then I hear a voice

‫ ואלי דבר יגנב‬12 …‫ותקח אזני שׁמץ מנהו‬

‫ יעמד ולא־אכיר מראהו‬16 ‫תמונה לנגד עיני‬ ‫דממה וקול אשׁמע‬

This “whisper” (‫ )שׁמץ‬is the same term used in 4:12, and it appears nowhere else. That it is linked here with ‫ דבר‬also recalls 4:12, where the two terms were paralleled, and even the use of ‫ שׁמע‬may recall 4:16.149 If this recalls 4:12–16, however, it seems to be dismissive of it. Where ch. 9 appealed to 4:17 to ground Job’s accusation that God uses his power to subvert justice, here God’s power itself minimizes the significance of that “whisper of a word.” Combined with the uncharacteristic style of address in this speech, this marks a complete turn-around from Job’s earlier treatment of the vision. As such, ch. 26 bears a strong affinity with ch. 25, with each reflecting a comparable perspective on God’s supremacy. Indeed, many commentators conclude that these were originally part of the same speech, a suggestion we will return to below. Nevertheless, in their current form these two speeches 145 As such, it also anticipates the divine speeches, cf. BALENTINE, Job, 392–94; WITTE, Leiden, 152. 146 E.g. HABEL, Job, 374–75; CLINES, Job, 2.639. 147 Following the Qere, against the Kethib ‫דרכו‬, “his way.” 148 Maintaining the Kethib. 149 BALENTINE, Job, 383, 392–93, implies that this may allude to 4:12 and serves to minimize its claim to revelation. WOLFERS, Orphan Chapter, 388, also recognizes that this is a dismissal of the vision, but since he assumes that it alludes to Eliphaz’s vision, he misses how starkly this contrasts with Job’s earlier speeches. His claim that the whole of 26:5–14 describes not God but the “spirit” of 4:15 is also highly unlikely.

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each reverse the treatment of the vision elsewhere in the book. Where the friends earlier dismissed the vision, Job now does so; where Job earlier built positively on the vision’s imagery, Bildad now does so. That both speeches reflect a positive view of God’s supremacy leaves them much closer to the friends’ position than to Job’s, but in both cases a shift has occurred. Together, these chapters praise God, associate the vision with the friends’ position, and distance it from Job’s. As we will now see, something similar also appears to be at work in chs. 24 and 27, by other means. V. The Vision in the Final Speeches of Job Beyond ch. 26, Job’s other speeches of the third speech cycle also reflect a curious inconsistency with his earlier speeches. The speech in ch. 27 is a case in point. It is already odd that it begins with a reintroduction of Job in 27:1, when he was also the speaker in ch. 26.150 But unlike ch. 26, the beginning of ch. 27 does reflect Job’s characteristic style. He again speaks in the firstperson singular (27:2–7, 11) and makes ample use of first-person suffixes to describe his own body and experiences (27:2–7).151 When second-person address is used, it is again plural as in Job’s earlier speeches (27:5, 11–12), not singular as in 26:2–4. Thematically, Job maintains the same basic perspective here as in his earlier speeches, insisting on his integrity and accusing God of injustice, “By the 150 The formula in 27:1 is repeated only in 29:1. Both introduce passages that reflect Job’s characteristic style, but follow chapters that do not. SEOW, Elihu’s Revelation, 257, acknowledges that the formula in 27:1 deviates from that seen earlier, and suggests that it be translated “Job continued to take up [‫ ]נשׂא‬his taunt [‫ ]משׁל‬and said” (cf. Isa 14:4; Mic 2:4 and Hab 2:6 for the use of ‫ נשׂא‬+ ‫ משׁל‬to introduce an oracle of woe). He takes this as a clue to the purpose of these chapters: Job is taunting his friends with an “expropriation” of what they might have said in 24:18–24, 26:5–14 and 27:8–23. But if ‫ משׁל‬really means “taunt” to the author of Job, why is the exact same expression used in 29:1, where Job is no longer addressing the friends at all, much less parodying their words? It seems better to take this as a neutral term for “theme,” “discourse,” or even “poem” (cf. HABEL, Job, 379). The uniqueness of the formula may signal some kind of textual disruption. Elihu is also reintroduced in 34:1, 35:1 and 36:1, which is sometimes taken as a sign of secondary expansion, but nothing similar occurs in the first half of the book, even when Job speaks for three chapters consecutively in chs. 12–14. 151 Cf. “my justice” (‫ ;משׁפטי‬27:2b), “my soul” (‫ ;נפשׁי‬27:2b), “my breath in me” ( ‫נשׁמתי‬ ‫ ;בי‬27:3a), “my nose” (‫ ;אפי‬27:3b), “my lips” (‫ ;שׂפתי‬27:4a), “my tongue” (‫ ;שׁוני‬27:4b), “my integrity” (‫ ;תמתי‬27:5b), “my righteousness” (‫ ;צדקתי‬27:6a), “my heart” (‫ ;לבבי‬27:6b), “my days” (‫ ;ימי‬27:6b), “my enemy” (‫ ;איבי‬27:7a), “my opponent” (‫ ;מתקוממי‬27:7b), as well as “for me” (‫ ;לי‬27:5a) and “from me” (‫ ;ממני‬27:5b). Just these 6 verses include more 1st Sg. suffixes (15) than all of the friends’ speeches combined (11), but this is common for Job, with similar clusters of personal language recurring throughout chs. 3, 6–7, 9–10, 13– 14, 16–17, 19, 21, 23, and 29–31 (cf. Chapter Two, Section A.III above). Again, there was not a single one of these forms in ch. 26. There are also none in 27:8–23.

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life of God, who has taken away my justice [‫]משׁפטי‬, and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter…. I have held fast in my righteousness [‫]בצדקתי‬, and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days” (27:2, 6). Job’s words in 27:2–6 could fit comfortably in any of his speeches of the first two cycles, and starkly contrast with the impersonal tone of ch. 26.152 Also in 27:7–12 some traces of first-person singular speech remain, but this is now blended with third-person forms in 27:8–10, which take over entirely in 27:13–23.153 More importantly, this grammatical shift corresponds to a thematic one, as the second half of the chapter focuses on the fate of the wicked rather than Job’s own situation. In this as well, 27:7–12 is ambiguous, but 27:13–23 is not. The former begins with a wish that Job’s “enemy” be like the wicked (27:7), then describes their fate with rhetorical questions in 27:8–10: 8

For what is the hope of the godless when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?154 9 Will God listen to his cry when distress comes upon him? 10 if he delights in the Almighty, and calls to God at all times?

Newsom is probably right to detect a note of irony here.155 Though it seems at first to be a straightforward depiction of the dire fate of the wicked, such as any of the friends might express, the imagery is ambiguous. Though 27:8 seems to acknowledge that the wicked has no hope, it is only a question, not a direct affirmation, and 27:9–10 can be read either to ask whether the wicked

152 These verses play an important role in the book as a whole, introducing the main theme of Job’s final speech with their oath of innocence and conclusion that God “has taken away my right” (HABEL, Job, 377–78, cf. 466, 481; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 309). 153 Job regularly spoke in the 3rd person before, so that is not itself problematic, but he does not generally abandon 1st Sg. forms when he does so, except in chs. 12 and 21, and the third speech cycle (cf. esp. chs. 3, 6, 9, 14; by contrast, chs. 10, 13, 16–17, 19, 23 and 29–31 are almost entirely in the 1st person). The other examples in chs. 12 and 21 appear as the last speech of the first and second speech cycles respectively, and are clearly intended to subvert the friends’ arguments. Such a purpose may well be intended in ch. 24 and 27:7– 12 as well (though even those cases are debated), but 26:5–14 and 27:13–23 are very different from any of the above, not only lacking first-person references, but also showing no trace of parody. 154 The verb ‫ ישׁל‬is obscure. It is might be a form of ‫שׁלל‬, “to plunder,” or an otherwise unattested ‫ שׁלה‬II, “to draw out, extract” (BDB 1017), but the latter is now widely disputed, and HALOT does not accept such a root. It is therefore commonly emended, perhaps to ‫ישׁאל‬, “God requires his life” (e.g. CLINES, Job, 653), or ‫ישׁא‬, “He lifts his soul to God” (e.g. J. GRAY, Job 337). 155 NEWSOM, Contest, 167–68.

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call upon God (so NRSV), or whether God ignores their cries.156 Though Job begins by speaking of the “godless” (27:8), his description of them in 27:9– 10 sounds suspiciously like a description of the pious, one who “delights in the Almighty and calls to God at all times” (27:10). So who is it whose life God takes away – the impious or the pious? This could be read to mean that repentance itself makes no difference, challenging rather than affirming the friends’ position. This kind of ambiguity was familiar from Job’s earlier speeches, and indeed from the vision itself, and fits well with the rest of 27:2–12. Despite the apparent admission that the godless perish, therefore, Job may well be hinting at the same position he has maintained all along, that “it is all one, therefore I say: he destroys both the blameless and the wicked” (9:22). This leaves 27:11–12, with its challenge to the friends, suitably ironic. Something similar may also be reflected in Job’s speech in chs. 23–24. In this first speech of the third cycle, ch. 23 sounds like the old familiar Job, with an extended first-person account of his frustrated relation to God. As usual, he uses corporeal imagery and first-person suffixes (23:2, 4), and emphasizes his own terror and dread (‫ ;פחד‬23:15–16). He does not draw extensively on the vision’s language, but he does imply that death is inescapable (23:14) because “he stands alone and who can dissuade him? What he desires, that he does” (23:13). Job wishes he could bring his case before God, but he is unable to do so, which is probably a distant echo of Job’s conclusion from the vision that none is accounted righteous with God (9:2).157 In ch. 24, however, Job switches to the third person and focuses on the fate of mortals in general. The text is notoriously problematic, slipping back and forth between singular and plural forms without clear referents.158 Up through 24:17, however, the perspective still seems to be Job’s, lamenting that God 156

BALENTINE, Job, 406, appears to accept the latter sense. LONGMAN, Job, 318, affirms the former. 157 Cf. HABEL, Job, 347–48, who concludes that “Job wants to reach God and meet him face to face; he will not be satisfied with a bizarre night vision like that of Eliphaz (4:12– 16)” (348). We will return to the issue of the relation between Job’s vision and his wish for a direct encounter with God in Chapter Four below. 158 Up through 24:12 the forms are nearly all plural (one 3rd Sg. suffix in 24:5), but the reference shifts without warning in 24:10 from the wicked to their victims. From 24:13 on, plural (24:13, 16b-17, 19b, 23b-24) and singular (24:14–16a, 18, 20–23a) are interwoven, and there again the references shift without warning, particularly in 24:23, where God could be the subject of the verbs, but is not identified. Due to such inconsistencies, many consider the speech a series of disconnected fragments (e.g. FOHRER, Hiob, 367–374, freely rearranges the text: 24:1–4, [9], 10–12, 22–23, 5–8, 13–17*, 18–21*, [24–25]. He deletes 24:9, 13b, 24 and 25 as glosses. He claims that these derive from four independent wisdom poems of diverse perspective (370). Such an extreme solution is not necessary, but it is clear that the text is problematic, whether due to the inconsistent use of pre-existing material or secondary corruption.

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does not reliably rescue the innocent from the wicked (24:1, 12).159 But 24:18–24 is less clear, seeming to describe the “cursed” fate of the wicked (24:18), who “are exalted a little while, and then gone” (24:24), much as the friends claimed. These verses are often read with a modal sense, implying a wish rather than a straightforward account of reality,160 but the text is ambiguous and can also be read as an affirmation of the friends’ position.161 What most complicates matters is 24:23, which affirms that “He gives to him the safety on which he relies, and his eyes are on their ways.” The subject appears to be God, though this is not explicit, and if so the verse could be read to mean that God actually supports the wicked (24:22 could be read the same way).162 This leaves the conclusion that the wicked perish in 24:24 ambivalent. It is certainly a shift from Job’s earlier speeches, especially in ch. 21, but not wholly out of keeping with them (cf. esp. 9:22). The same cannot be said for 27:13–23. Unlike ch. 24 and 27:7–12, there is no hint of irony in these verses. Not only does 27:13–23 completely lack Job’s characteristic mode of first-person speech, but its description of “the wicked man’s portion from God” (27:13) could be dropped into any of the friends’ speeches without raising an eyebrow. Unlike in 24:22–23 and 27:9– 10, there is no syntactical ambiguity or subtle twist, not even a rhetorical question to soften the blow. This is nothing more nor less than a straightforward reaffirmation of the friends’ position that the wicked perish but the righteous are preserved. It directly contradicts Job’s own arguments, especially in ch. 21, and echoes depictions of the wicked found throughout the friends’ speeches, especially Zophar’s in ch. 20.163 The extent to which this contradicts Job’s argument in ch. 21 can be seen most clearly in the inversion of 21:18 in 27:20. Where the latter affirms that, “Terrors overtake him like a flood, at night a whirlwind snatches him away [‫]גנבתו סופה‬,” Job has already asked: “How often164 are they like straw before the wind, like chaff that a whirlwind snatches away [‫ ”?]גנבתו סופה‬The final expression is identical, down to the third-person singular suffix, but the earli159

Though the style of ch. 24 as a whole is more detached than is usual for Job, it is not unprecedented, as he speaks similarly in 12:9–25 and 21:7–26. 160 E.g. NJPS, BALENTINE, Job, 371–74. 161 NEWSOM, Contest, 165–66, emphasizes this ambiguity, without deciding between a modal or indicative sense. She believes that the text deliberately juxtaposes 24:1–17 with 24:18–24 to create “a radical dissonance” (167). 162 Cf. e.g. 9:24; 16:9–14; 21:7–33; cf. HARTLEY, Job, 353–54. NEWSOM, Contest, 165– 67, notes that the text can be read in line with either Job’s or the friends’ positions – much depends on the tone with which one reads. 163 See WITTE, Leiden, 159. 164 “How often” (‫ )כמה‬must be inferred from 20:17a, but the whole context makes clear that Job is denying that the wicked are destroyed.

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er passage denies what the latter affirms.165 Similarly, where 21:8 affirms that “their descendants are established before them, their offspring [‫]צאצאים‬ spread out166 before their eyes,” 27:14 affirms that, “If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword, and his offspring [‫ ]צאצאים‬never have enough bread.” Where 21:9 claims that the “houses” (‫ )בתים‬of the wicked are secure, 27:18 compares the “house” (‫ )בית‬of the wicked to a moth (‫)עשׁ‬.167 This does not just contradict ch. 21, however; it directly challenges the vision’s own conclusions. Where 4:17-19 dismisses the possibility of human righteousness, 27:13-23 reaffirms a dichotomy between the wicked and the righteous, and where 4:19-21 insists that anyone can perish, 27:13-23 attributes that fate exclusively to the wicked. It even uses some of the same vocabulary as the vision to mark this contrast. For example, while in 4:19 it was asked, “how much more those who dwell in houses [‫ ]בתים‬of clay [‫]חמר‬, whose foundation is in the dust [‫ ?]עפר‬They are crushed before a moth [‫]עשׁ‬,” 27:16–18 affirms of the wicked: “If he piles up silver like dust [‫]עפר‬, and stores up clothing like clay [‫]חמר‬, he stores it up but the righteous wear it, and the innocent divide up the silver.168 He builds his house [‫ ]בית‬like a moth [‫]עשׁ‬, or like the booth a watchman makes.” Where 4:17 questioned whether any are “righteous” (‫ )צדק‬and assigned this lowly fate to all, in 27:17 the “righteous” (‫ )צדיק‬are spared the losses of the “the wicked.” This does not just reject Job’s account in ch. 21. Even more than 26:14, this rejects the vision itself. The very dichotomy that it challenged is reaffirmed, and Job’s conclusion that any can perish is directly denied, using the vision’s own language and imagery to do it. As such, 27:13–23 is closely aligned with the friends’ speeches from the first two cycles, reapplying the vision’s imagery to the wicked just as Eliphaz 165 This is all the more surprising given that the syntax of the two verses differs: ‫גנב‬ takes a direct object, which is the wicked in 27:20, indicated by the pronominal suffix, but in 21:18 the suffix points to “chaff” in a relative clause. That 21:18b is an asyndetic relative clause is noted by, e.g., CLINES, Job, 2.511; SEOW, Job, 886. 166 MT ‫לפניהם עמם וצאצאיהם לעיניהם‬, “before them, with them, and their offspring before their eyes,” is redundant and awkward. Following the alternative in BHS, it is preferable to emend this to ‫עממו צאצאיהם‬, with ‫ עמם‬taken to mean “to spread out” or perhaps “to multiply” (cf. SEOW, Job, 880–81; such a root, ‫ עמם‬III, is recognized by DCH but not BDB or HALOT). 167 The claim that the wicked are safe “from dread” (21:9) also contradicts the claim that “terrors overtake them” (27:20); the wicked “spend their days in prosperity” and go to Sheol in peace in 21:13, whereas in 27:19 they go to bed with wealth, and awake to find it gone. In 21:11–12 their children dance and sing; in 27:15 their children perish and their widows make no lamentation. 168 As HABEL, Job, 386, and BALENTINE, Job, 407, note, this is a lovely doubleentendre, playing off the associations of dust and clay with both abundance and death. Such an artistic turn used to describe the grim fate of the wicked is not what one would expect from a parody of that view.

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did in 15:20–35 and Zophar did in 20:5–29. In fact, the first verse in 27:13 repeats the last verse of Zophar’s final (extant) speech nearly verbatim: 27:13 (Job)

20:29 (Zophar)

This is the wicked man’s portion with God, and the heritage oppressors receive from the Almighty:

This is the wicked man’s portion from God, and the heritage decreed for him by God.

‫זה חלק־אדם רשׁע עם־אל‬ ‫ונחלת עריצים משׁדי יקחו‬

‫זה חלק־אדם רשׁע מאלהים‬ ‫ונחלת אמרו מאל פ‬

The first half of 27:13 is identical to 20:29a except that ‫ עם־אל‬replaces ‫מאלהים‬, while 27:13b repeats ‫ ונחלת‬from 20:29b but is otherwise slightly expansionistic.169 Balentine takes this to be a quotation of Zophar by Job,170 but this is not like any of Job’s previous quotations of the friends, not only because it is much fuller and more exact than the rest, but especially because it is neither inverted nor repudiated. It introduces an account of fate of the wicked that is fully in keeping with Zophar’s own point of view, including his critique of Job. For instance, the claim that “terrors” overtake the wicked in 27:20 not only parallels several statements by the friends (esp. 15:20; 18:14; 20:25), and contradicts Job’s response in 21:9 that the wicked are safe from fear, but also attributes to the wicked the very terrors that Job has experienced himself.171 For Job to use such language to describe the wicked, while denying that the “righteous” suffer, implies the same unintended selfcondemnation created by the attribution of the vision itself to Eliphaz (cf. 5:20–21; 15:21; 22:10). In fact, the present attributions of 4:12–21 and 27:13–23 mirror one another: The latter is every bit as out of place on Job’s lips as the vision was on his friend’s, and for the same reasons. Therefore, the whole of the third speech cycle is oddly inconsistent with the earlier dialogues. At times, Job is his old self, but at other times the text is ambiguous, and occasionally even contradicts his earlier complaints. The troubled and fearful first-person discourse that characterizes both the vision and Job’s earlier speeches continues only in ch. 23 and 27:2–7, while elsewhere Job reverses his own conclusions in chs. 9 and 21, praising God’s 169 The plural in 27:13b stands out, as in both ch. 20 and 27:13–23 the wicked are otherwise consistently referred to in the singular. Job, by contrast, uses the plural throughout most of ch. 21. 170 BALENTINE, Job, 406–7; he suggests that Job’s shift from ‫ מאלהים‬to ‫ עם־אל‬could imply that God does not just apportion the fate of the wicked but shares in it: “Job appears to be speaking of the punishment the wicked deserve ‘along with’ or ‘in addition to’ God” (409, emphasis original). This reads too much into the preposition, which can simply mean “in the presence of, before, by” (CDCH, 330), and has already been used as a paraphrase for ‫ מן‬in 9:2. That 27:13 retains the use of ‫ מן‬in the second half of the verse confirms this. 171 E.g. 3:25; 23:15; cf. also later in 30:15; 31:23.

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power and condemning the wicked. Not only does he use the vision’s own imagery to reaffirm the friends’ dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked in 27:13–23, but he even seems to dismiss the vision itself and his earlier conclusions from it in 26:5–14. Just as the vision’s current placement in ch. 4 violates Eliphaz’s otherwise consistent style and conclusions, the current attribution of ch. 26 and 27:13–23 to Job contradicts his own otherwise consistent style and conclusions. Meanwhile, the friends’ speeches in this portion of the book reflect a similar inconsistency. Though Eliphaz’s final speech in ch. 22 is genuinely reminiscent of the earlier approach of the friends, the brief speech attributed to Bildad in ch. 25 represents its own dramatic shift in perspective. The vision’s condemnation of all mortals is no longer dismissed, but apparently embraced, and incorporated into an acclimation of God’s supremacy. At the very moment where Job’s dependence on the vision is thrown into question, one of the friends appears to defend it. As at the beginning of his dialogue with his friends, so also at the end, the present attribution of significant blocks of text stands in stark contradiction to the positions laid out in all of the speeches in between. Yet perhaps stranger than these inversions is the fact that they are not permanent. Though we hear nothing more from the three original friends, we have already seen that the Elihu speeches return to attribute the vision and its conclusions to Job. Elihu responds to Job’s earlier views, not those expressed in 26:5–14 or 27:13–23. And while the controversial wisdom poem in ch. 28 also lacks Job’s characteristic style,172 his closing monologue in chs. 29–31 returns to something much closer to the perspective of his first two speech cycles. Presenting a sustained case for his own innocence and ill-treatment, Job once again describes his experiences in the first person,173 and regularly speaks of his own bodily reactions and fear.174 Though Job’s approach in chs. 172 Whether ch. 28 is original to the book or not, it also lacks obvious allusions to the vision, does not reflect Job’s usual first-person style, and may or may not reflect his viewpoint. Its denial of human access to wisdom is reminiscent of the conclusion in ch. 26 and Zophar’s claim in 11:6–9, and so could be taken to reflect the friends’ view, possibly added by a later hand (as Elihu takes little or no note of it; cf. LAUBER, Weisheit, 375– 406), or as an anticipation of the divine speeches (esp. 38:16–18; cf. JOHNSON, Eye, 136– 39). On the other hand, JONES, Rumors, 241–44, et passim, thinks the chapter is a subversion of the traditional search for wisdom, and so a rejection of the friends’ position, and possibly original to the book. It would be consistent with my thesis to read the chapter in any of these ways. 173 E.g. 29:2–7, 12–25; 30:9, 19–20, 23, 25–31; 31:1, 5, 7–9, 13–40. 174 Job refers to numerous specific body parts: “my head” (‫ ;ראשׁי‬29:3), “my hand” (‫;ידי‬ 29:20; 31:21, 25, 27), “my face” (‫ ;פני‬29:24; 30:10, 11), “my foot/feet” (‫ ;רגלי‬30:12; 31:5), “my bones” (‫ ;עצמי‬30:17, 30), “my bowels” (‫ ;מעי‬30:27), “my skin” (‫ ;עורי‬30:30), “my eyes” (‫ ;עיני‬31:1, 7), “my heart” (‫ ;לבי‬31:7, 9, 27), “my palm” (‫ ;כפי‬31:7), “my shoulder” (‫ כתפי‬in 31:22; ‫ שׁכמי‬in 31:36), “my forearm” (‫ ;אזרעי‬31:22), “my mouth” (‫ ;פי‬31:27), “my

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195

29–31 differs from that of the first two speech cycles,175 this seems to be due primarily to the fact that Job no longer addresses his friends directly.176 Some claim that Job presupposes in these chapters the very retribution theology he denied in earlier chapters,177 but this is not a difference in perspective so much as a difference in rhetoric. Job never denied that justice should correspond to one’s deeds, only that it does, and this is precisely the same disjunction that he also exposes in chs. 29–31. That is, in the earlier speeches Job insisted – often on the basis of the vision – that God disregards human righteousness and treats all alike. Here he affirms the same (e.g. 30:20–22; 31:23), but his approach is different. By comparing his previous blessing (ch. 29) with his current disgrace (ch. 30), then insisting on his own innocence (ch. 31), Job implicitly challenges the link between righteousness and blessing in his own life, accusing God of injustice.178 He still assumes that God ignores human righteousness, but instead of building on the vision, he sets out his own story as proof. Despite the novel form, therefore, Job’s final speeches represent a return to the perspective seen in the first two cycles, not a continuation of that in chs. 24–28. No matter how we explain the third speech cycle, then, it seems to represent no more than an intermission before the old pattern reasserts itself. But why the intermission, and why do so many of its oddities reflect critically on Job’s earlier use of the vision? To answer these questions will not only tell us something about the purpose of the third speech cycle, but can also help explain the similarly anomalous location of the vision in ch. 4.

C. The Vision in the Development of the Dialogues C. The Vision in the Development of the Dialogues

That the third speech cycle is inconsistent with what precedes it is widely recognized, though variously explained. Beyond the obvious facts that Bildad’s third speech is significantly shorter than any other in the book, that Zophar’s is missing altogether, and that Job’s is interrupted by two unprecedented reintroductions in 27:1 and 29:1, the third speech cycle is also marked by clear stylistic and theological shifts when compared to the earlier speech tongue” (‫ ;חכי‬31:30), “my bosom” (‫ ;חבי‬31:33), as well as “my breath” (‫ ;נפשׁי‬30:16, 25). Job emphasizes his dread in 30:15, 27; 31:23, 34. 175 And for that reason, chs. 29–31 are also sometimes taken to be secondary, e.g. IRWIN, Elihu, 41–42. 176 NEWSOM, Contest, 183–86. 177 Cf. 30:1–8; 31:2–4; cf. NEWSOM, Contest, 280–81 n. 6. 178 SEOW, Elihu’s Revelation, 260–61, argues on the basis of a parallel in the MeṣadḤashavyahu Inscription (7th C. BCE), that chs. 29–31 reflect the genre of an accusation of abuse of authority (cf. DOBBS-ALLSOPP, Meṣad-Ḥashavyahu, 49–55; COS 3.77–78), but in this case directed at God himself. Cf. also MAGDALENE, Scales, 127–176.

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cycles. What is not often given sufficient attention, however, is that these anomalies mirror those involving the vision’s own placement in ch. 4. Just as 4:12–21 contradicts Eliphaz’s otherwise consistent style and perspective yet closely conforms to Job’s, so 26:2–14 and 27:13–23 contradict Job’s otherwise consistent style and perspective, but directly align with those of his friends. This is no small matter of Job or Eliphaz speaking inconsistently; it is a stark reversal of their most fundamental arguments. By reframing the entire dialogue between Job and his friends, these inversions present us with two sides of the same coin, and their resolution is inextricably bound together. It should not surprise, therefore, that much the same sorts of explanations have been proposed for the tensions in chs. 24–27 as those in ch. 4. The difference is that scholars have in general been much more willing to harmonize the vision with Eliphaz’s views than to harmonize these later speeches with Job’s. More often, the latter anomalies are treated as a series of quotations or parodies of the friends,179 seen as secondary additions to the book,180 or thought to be displaced from the friends’ speeches.181 Nearly everyone recognizes that for Job to speak these words as his own would represent a massive contradiction with his earlier speeches – a contradiction every bit as significant as that implied by the present location of the vision itself in Eliphaz’s first speech. This suggests that the anomalies in the third speech cycle are not one more problem in the structure of the book, but one and the same problem with that created by the current placement of the vision. In this final section, therefore, we will reconsider the three most popular theories that have been developed to explain the idiosyncrasies of the third speech cycle: 1. as a deliberate rhetorical strategy by the original author, 2. as a product of secondary redactional activity, and 3. as a result of some sort of

179

Such synchronic models were assumed by most early commentaries, and have recently regained in popularity, especially in English-language scholarship; cf. e.g. WEISER, Hiob, 21, 189–196; ANDERSEN, Job, 214–22; JANZEN, Job, 171–186; NEWSOM, Job, 49697, 516 (though she admits that chs. 25–26 can be plausibly read together); idem, Contest, 161–68; BALENTINE, Job, 381–398, 404–410; LONGMAN, Job, 24–26; SEOW, Job, 29–31. Even TUR-SINAI, Job, 388, accepts this regarding 27:7–23, suggesting that Job recounts his own former views. 180 The redactional model emerged in the late nineteenth century and has remained influential in Germany, but finds few proponents in Anglo-American scholarship; cf. e.g. FOHRER, Hiob, 34–36; HESSE, Hiob, 144–156; WITTE, Leiden, passim; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 56–66. J. GRAY, Job, 60–62, accepts this in the case of ch. 26, but maintains the attribution of the whole of chs. 24 and 27 to Job (cf. 314–339). 181 The displacement model was most popular in the mid-twentieth century, but maintains fewer proponents today; cf. e.g. DHORME, Job, xliv-li, cf. 366–398; HABEL, Job, 37– 38, cf. 351–387; HARTLEY, Job, 24–26; GRADL, Ijob, 18–19; CLINES, Job, 1.lix, 2589–90, 626–630, 643–44, 661–63, though he admits that some intentional redaction may be involved as well (1.lix); cf. also POPE, Job, XXVI–XXVII, 174–196.

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accidental disruption.182 We will see that these are too often presented as mutually exclusive options, when in fact each of them recognizes certain essential features of the text that tend to be overlooked or ignored by the others. None of them fully resolves the anomalies on their own, especially in light of an original attribution of the vision to Job, but their insights can be combined into a surprisingly consistent whole. Drawing from each of them, I will argue that there are clear indications that the present order of the text is neither original nor accidental. The present speech in ch. 26 almost certainly resulted from the deliberate reattribution to Job of material originally attributed to Bildad, while 27:13–23 has either also been transferred to Job’s final speech from the end of Zophar’s speech in ch. 20, or more likely was composed secondarily by the same redactor who reordered chs. 25–26.183 Together, these moves do not merely “put some traditionally pious words into the mouth of Job.”184 They are a direct inversion of Job’s conclusions from the vision, obscure Job’s use of it to accuse God of deception and injustice, and reframe Job’s entire dispute with his friends. I. Is the Third Speech Cycle the Original End of the Dialogue? Just as many commentators have sought to read 4:12–21 as a constituent part of Eliphaz’s argument, many also attempt to read the third speech cycle as the original, intended ending to the dialogue. Here, however, only a few still maintain that Job actually means everything he says in these chapters. Most read some or all of 24:18–24, 26:5–14 and 27:7–23 as a kind of imitation of the friends, rather than as a straightforward account of what Job himself believes.185 A recent exception is Balentine, who reads each of these problematic passages as a genuine expression of Job’s perspective. First, in 24:18–24 Job is said to voice a set of “imprecatory wishes,” though Balentine admits

182

Variations and combinations of each of these theories have also been proposed, as have a few less popular alternatives such as that these represent fragments written by the original author but only later incorporated into the book itself (WESTERMANN, Aufbau, 128–130), or that these derive from originally independent books about Job (GINSBERG, Patient, 88–111). In addition to the works noted in the preceding footnotes, cf. WITTE, Leiden, 1–55, who reviews the literature up to 1993. 183 The explanation I propose most closely resembles that offered by POPE, Job, XXVI– XXVII, 174–196, who also suggests that material in chs. 24–27 has been intentionally displaced, though the details of our reconstructions differ and he takes no account of this section’s links to the vision. 184 NEWSOM, Job, 497, who dismisses such theories. 185 In short, they treat these passages more or less as TUR-SINAI, Job, 88–91, and SMITH, Vision, 453–463, attempt to read the vision: as implicit quotations or paraphrases of the speaker’s opponents.

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that “this depends on conjectural emendations that may be challenged.”186 In 26:5–14 Job finishes Bildad’s speech for him, as a way of saying that he has heard it all before, but Balentine suggests that Job also shows his own concern with God’s creative power, anticipating the divine speeches.187 Finally, in 27:13–23 Job preempts Zophar’s speech altogether, leaving him nothing else to say, but in so doing Job also hints that God himself should be counted among the wicked.188 Such a theory seems to preserve the integrity of the text, but at a high cost. Though ch. 24 is indeed ambiguous, the idea that Job preempts Bildad and Zophar in chs. 26 and 27 poses a bigger problem, underestimating how seriously these passages contradict Job’s earlier claims. This is nothing like Job’s imitation of the friends’ style in ch. 21, where the surface-level similarities serve a broadside attack on the friends’ position. In 27:13–23 especially, not only the style of speech but the message it presents are entirely in line with the friends’ position, and expressed with little or no obvious irony. Newsom offers an intriguing explanation for the latter problem. She argues that Job’s apparent reuse of the friends’ arguments in chs. 24, 26 and 27 could be an intentional strategy to bring closure to the dispute, as something similar is seen at the end of the Babylonian Theodicy.189 The latter text offers the closest formal parallel to the dialogue portion of the book of Job and reflects similar subject matter.190 Though the Babylonian Theodicy includes only one friend instead of three, it also features a series of exchanges between a sufferer who challenges the traditional explanations for suffering, and a friend who defends the justice of the gods. As Newsom notes, however, the final speech by the sufferer and his friend each seem to affirm something of the other’s position. The friend acknowledges that the gods “gave twisted words to the human race,”191 while the sufferer ends by submitting himself to the mercy of the gods whom he had earlier condemned.192 This is not a com186 BALENTINE, Job, 371, noting the critique of DRIVER AND GRAY, Job, 211. An optative reading is also adopted by NJPS, ANDERSEN, Job, 213–14; HARTLEY, Job, 350–54. 187 BALENTINE, Job, 382, 385–393. 188 BALENTINE, Job, 404–410. 189 NEWSOM, Contest, 88–89, 161–68; this parallel was earlier noted by HABEL, Job, 38, 355–358. 190 NEWSOM, Contest, 80–81, cf. 72–89, 164–68; SEOW, Job, 54–56. The extant copies of this text are all from the first millennium BCE, either in Neo-Assyrian or NeoBabylonian script, but many conclude that the original was Old Babylonian, as the name hidden in its acrostic form ([E]saggil-kīnam-ubbib) can be linked to an 11th C. scholar who served during the reigns of Adap-apla-iddina and Nebuchadnezzar I. This attribution could be pseudepigraphal, however (cf. OSHIMA, Babylonian Theodicy, xii, xiv–xvii). 191 Babylonian Theodicy 279; trans. FOSTER, Before the Muses, 921; cf. COS 1.495. 192 NEWSOM, Contest, 81,164; MATTINGLY, Pious Sufferer, 326–27. OSHIMA, Babylonian Theodicy, xxi–xxii, xxvi–xxxiii, acknowledges this, though he goes further than most to claim that the friend and sufferer actually do accept one another’s arguments at the end.

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plete reversal of their positions, but rather a kind of compromise, which “allows the dialogue to come to an end without an inappropriate triumphing of one position over the other.”193 It is unlikely that the author of Job had the Babylonian Theodicy itself in view, so the overall similarity of structure suggests an established genre of a “wisdom dialogue,” of which they are both extant examples.194 In that light, Newsom suggests that the compromises seen at the end of Job’s dialogue may reflect a similar generic convention as the end of the Babylonian Theodicy. In this case, however, she believes that the convention is subverted, as Job’s imitation of the friends is not matched by any corresponding compromise on their part. On her view, the result is not closure but a kind of “dare” or “provocation.”195 By taking up and exaggerating the friends’ arguments while they fall silent, she suggests that Job reverses the intent of the final speeches of the Babylonian Theodicy, not relieving but increasing the tension.196 Newsom pays little attention to Bildad’s speech, saying simply that “Bildad’s attempt to reintroduce the topic of God’s power and human nothingness (25:1–6) is preempted by Job,” who insults his advice in 26:2–4 and completes his speech for him in 26:5–14.197 But as we have seen, there is more at stake in the link between chs. 25 and 26 than just their similar portrayals of God’s supremacy. Bildad now makes positive use of the vision, while Job dismisses his own earlier conclusions from it. If the vision was originally attributed to Job, therefore, this inverted treatment could reflect the other side of the compromise that she thought missing: Not only does Job echo the friends’ perspective on God’s power and the fate of the wicked, but the friends – represented by Bildad – also echo Job’s perspective by embracing 193 NEWSOM, Contest, 81, 164. HABEL, Job, 355–358, also points to this aspect of the end of the Babylonian Theodicy to argue that the speech he reconstructs for Zophar from chs. 24 and 27 reflects a compromise to Job’s position. 194 NEWSOM, Contest, 80–81. Though the Babylonian Theodicy is the only other extant dialogue concerning a pious sufferer, there are other texts that focus on suffering without knowing the cause (e.g. the Sumerian Man and His God, the Babylonian Dialogue between a Man and His God, and the Neo-Babylonian Ludlul bēl nēqemi). There are also dialogues on other subjects (e.g. the Dialogue of Pessimism; cf. NEWSOM, Contest, 72–83; SEOW, Job, 51–56; MATTINGLY, Pious Sufferer, 305–348; WEINFELD, Mesopotamian Parallels, 217–26; MÜLLER, Keilschriftliche Parallelen, 136–151; SEDLMEIER, Auseinandersetzungsliteratur, 85–136). 195 NEWSOM, Contest, 168. 196 NEWSOM, Contest, 164; followed in some details by SEOW, Elihu’s Revelation, 257; idem, Job, 29–31, though he denies that much weight should be put on the Babylonian Theodicy as a structural parallel to Job (Elihu’s Revelation, 258; cf. idem, Job, 54–56). 197 NEWSOM, Contest, 167. She treats ch. 26 differently in her earlier commentary, idem, Job, 516–520, suggesting that Job interrupts Bildad in 26:1–4, then Bildad continues his speech himself in 26:5–14. She contrasts Job’s emphasis on the “personal” quality of God in chs. 23–24 with Bildad’s focus on God’s “wholly otherness” in chs. 25–26.

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the vision they earlier dismissed. Further, just as Job’s own use of the friends’ language in 24:18–24 and 27:7–12 is twisted in ways that might still be reconciled to his earlier views, Bildad’s newfound appreciation for human lowliness is also reframed in a way more compatible with the friends’ position. The two sides each concede something to the other, without wholly losing their own character. This is a promising line of interpretation, but it becomes problematic when used to defend the originality of the final shape of the text. For while 24:18– 24, 25:2–6 and 27:2–12 could well be integrated into such a synchronic reading, ch. 26 and 27:13–23 fit much less comfortably. Newsom says little regarding ch. 26, but she seems to recognize this in the case of 27:13–23, admitting that Job is “substituting logical coordination for a perception and a language that verge on madness.”198 This seems an extreme interpretive move, rescuing the integrity of the text only by denying the coherence of the speaker. To be sure, Job is not above self-contradiction – his conflicted depictions of his own death attest to this – but “madness” is a much stronger claim. Support for such a reading might perhaps be found in the expression ‫ ולמה־זה הבל תהבלו‬in 27:12b, if this is read as an introduction to 27:13–23 and translated with something like “Why then this meaningless talk?”199 But if this were meant to introduce a quotation of the friends’ “meaningless talk,” why does nothing in 27:13–23 itself hint at such nonsense? This is no parody; it is a simple restatement of their position, in which Job directly reverses the central points of his argument. Nor is it necessary to read 27:12 as the introduction to a restatement of the friends’ position. It reads equally well as a final dismissal of them or their position as “altogether vain.”200 Dhorme notes that Job concludes his speech in 21:34 in the same way.201 Nor does it make any more sense to say that Job is himself approaching “madness,” merely by juxtaposing his own view with an uninterpreted restatement of his opponents’. But even if it were accepted that Job has given up argument and resorted to bald restatement as a final rejection of his friends, this still leaves all of the other sequential and stylistic anomalies in the third speech cycle unexplained: the unprecedented reintroductions of Job in 27:1 and 29:1, the sudden shifts in tone and inconsistent manner of address, and especially the ways these chapters do not just attribute particular 198

NEWSOM, Contest, 167. She claims that the very fact that Job’s own case contradicts his words here is intentional: “Though Job ostensibly says only the most conventional words, his contextualization of them shows that he has constructed an unstable and shifting set of equivalences and oppositions. What should be is the opposite of what is, yet he speaks as though all were as it should be” (167). 199 NIV; similarly, CEB, NJPS; NEWSOM, Job, 522, 524; J. GRAY, Job 334. 200 Cf. NRSV; CLINES, Job, 2.648. 201 DHORME, Job, xlix; similarly, FOHRER, Hiob, 380; DE WILDE, Hiob, 257 (who even moves 27:12 to follow 24:25); HABEL, Job, 382; CLINES, Job, 2.648.

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claims by the friends to Job, but also invert both Job’s and Bildad’s positions vis-à-vis the vision. The degree to which these anomalies not only contradict the earlier speech cycles but also mirror those surrounding the vision in chs. 3–4 suggests that a diachronic solution is again necessary, but what kind? II. Is the Third Speech Cycle a Secondary Addition? While synchronic explanations have become popular in American scholarship, many German commentaries and studies continue to maintain that at least some of the disruptions seen in the third speech cycle were created by deliberate redactional activity. The most influential current theory was proposed by Witte, who argues that originally Eliphaz was the only friend to have a third speech, which served as a kind of closing argument by the friends, immediately followed by Job’s final monologue, which included all of ch. 23, a few verses of chs. 24 and 27, and most of chs. 29–31.202 On his view, 24:5–8, 13–25; 25:1–6; 26:1–14; 27:7–23 and ch. 28 were all added in several subsequent layers of redaction.203 He believes the same redactional layers can also be detected elsewhere in the book, most notably in the insertion of 4:12–21 and 15:11–16 into Eliphaz’s speeches.204 We have already seen that this is not a good explanation for the origin of the vision itself, but other aspects of his theory are more compelling. Witte is almost certainly correct that Eliphaz’s speech in ch. 22 is original, and it is at least possible that it was meant to be the final statement of the friends’ position.205 He is also correct that the stylistic and theological shifts in chs. 24, 26 and 27 do not appear to be random, but reflect a clear inversion of Job’s position, which was most likely secondary and intentional, not simply accidental. First, the speech introductions in 26:1, 27:1 and 29:1 are a strong indicator of secondary activity. Even if all of the material in chs. 24–28 originally appeared somewhere in the book, these repeated reintroductions of Job indicate 202 WITTE, Leiden, 192–93 et passim; in particular he considers 23:1–17; 24:1, 2–4, 10– 12; 27:1–6*; 29:2–16, 21–25a; 30:1a*, 9*–31; 31:4–10, 13–14, 16–17, 19–22, 24–27, 29– 32, 35–37 to be Job’s original final speech. 203 Summarized in WITTE, Leiden, 166–171, 191–92. NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, also considers ch. 22 the final original speech by the friends, but does not discuss the development of Job’s speeches. WITTE, Leiden, 169–170 n. 428, points to some forerunners of his redactional model for chs. 23–28, including WESTERMANN, Aufbau, 128–130; O. KAISER, Ideologie, 73. DHORME, Job, xlvi n. 2, claims that such an interpolation theory would only be plausible if there were evidence of it across the whole of the dialogues, which he doubts. Witte attempts to demonstrate that such interpolations do occur throughout the book, but in fact this is not necessary. Supplementation can also occur preeminently at the end of a section. 204 WITTE, Leiden, esp. 91–93. 205 WITTE, Leiden, 115, suggests that ch. 22 functions as an “Abschlussrede” for the friends, which forms an excellent frame with the speech in chs. 4–5 (minus 4:12–21).

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some sort of deliberate attempt to bring order to a decidedly fragmentary sequence of speeches. Second, that the assignment of these passages to Job was intentional and not accidental is also implied by the location of the problematic material itself. It is not wholly random, but instead constitutes entire chapters (chs. 26, 28), followed by new introductions of the speaker (27:1; 29:1), or it appears at the end of speeches that are otherwise consistent with Job’s style (chs. 23–24, 27). A third argument Witte raises is more problematic, however. He claims that the Elihu speeches quote extensively from the first two speech cycles, but never from the material that he considers redactional. He takes this as confirmation that this material was not yet part of the book when the Elihu speeches were written.206 The case is interesting, but it only partially supports his conclusions. According to Witte’s initial monograph, the entire Elihu cycle was added in a block before any of the redactional layers he detects were added, though he later allowed that the Niedrigkeitsredaktion (including the vision) could predate Elihu.207 As Lauber shows, however, there are indeed linguistic links between the Elihu speeches and several passages that Witte thought secondary.208 We have already noted how Elihu draws from 4:12–21 throughout 33:12–19 and from 15:16 in 34:7,209 but there are also cases of probable dependence on the third speech cycle. For instance, 34:18–30 boasts a number of parallels to ch. 24, the most notable being between 34:21a and 24:23b: 34:21 (Elihu)

24:23 (Job)

For his eyes are upon the ways of a man, and he sees all his steps.

He gives to him the safety on which he relies, and his eyes are on their ways.

‫כי־עיניו על־דרכי־אישׁ‬ ‫וכל־צעדיו יראה‬

‫יתן־לו לבטח וישׁען‬ ‫ועיניהו על־דרכיהם‬

If one of these passages is dependent on the other, they appear to be opposed. In 24:23b, the parallel with 24:23a could imply care and concern for the wicked, though 24:24 leaves this unclear. But in 34:21 there is no ambiguity, as Elihu continues: “There is no darkness nor gloom where evildoers can hide” (34:22). It is of course possible that the author or redactor of ch. 24 is echoing Elihu rather than vice versa, or that the two texts both employ a more common idiom, but Elihu’s tendency to quote from and respond to Job’s earlier speeches favors seeing this as another example. In that case, this im206 Cf. WITTE, Leiden, 173–74; followed by KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 63–66. Earlier, IRWIN, Elihu, 40–47, also claimed that the Elihu speeches were composed (by more than one hand) before the third speech cycle reached its present form. 207 WITTE, Leiden, 173–74, but cf. the modified sequence in WITTE, Torah, 55. 208 LAUBER, Weisheit, 375–406, cf. esp. 398–401, where he addresses Witte’s reconstruction. 209 LAUBER, Weisheit, 382–83.

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plies that 24:18–24 (or at least 24:23 itself) was indeed present in the book when ch. 34 was composed, and apparently it was interpreted in such a way that Elihu felt it warranted such a response. Nevertheless, the pattern of quotation seen in the Elihu speeches may still suggest that certain portions of the third speech cycle were not originally attributed to Job. Elihu may also respond to 27:2–12 in 34:5–6, 35:9–16 and perhaps 33:9,210 but he only echoes ch. 26 and 27:13–23, if at all, in a positive manner.211 Elihu agrees with their positive assessment of God’s power and justice, and uses them to reject Job’s complaint that God ignores human righteousness. Thus, Witte is correct that Elihu appears to respond to a Job who has not yet expressed such sentiments as in 26:5–14 and 27:13–23.212 Just as Elihu responds to the vision as though it were attributed to Job, not Eliphaz, so his selective responses to the third speech cycle could imply that the author or redactor(s) of the Elihu speeches was or were operating with a different text than we currently possess. 210 Cf. LAUBER, Weisheit, 376–382; esp. 33:9 need not be an intentional allusion, as the verbal parallel is minimal and, as Lauber notes, Job says similar things at various points, e.g. 10:7; 13:18; 16:17; 23:7, 10; ch. 31 (379, 395). HABEL, Job, 377.78, 466, 481, accepts that 27:2–12 stands behind 34:5–6 and perhaps 33:9. 211 LAUBER, Weisheit, 375–397, identifies a huge range of parallels between the Elihu speeches and the rest of the book, many of which are no more than echoes or thematic parallels. Yet even he only finds scattered thematic links to chs. 25–26 and 27:13–23, namely: 34:26–30 describes God’s punishment of the wicked similarly to 27:13–23 and many other passages in the friends’ speeches. He suggests that 35:5–7 could echo 26:5–13, but it more clearly draws on 22:2–3, 12–15, and even Lauber allows that this could respond to 9:3–14 rather than to 26:5–13 (386). He links 36:6–17 to 27:7–13, but it is no closer to that text than to many of the friends’ statements concerning the wicked. On the other hand, much of ch. 37 is reminiscent of 26:5–14, as well as anticipating ch. 38. None of these respond critically to ch. 26 or 27:13–23, and they all appear in chs. 34–37, after Elihu himself is reintroduced in 34:1, 35:1 and 36:1. Even these chapters still seem to respond to Job’s earlier position, not to the very different perspectives expressed in 26:2– 14 and 27:13–23, but they may echo the latter in doing so. That the bulk of Elihu’s allusions to the third speech cycle appear after his reintroduction in 34:1 is one of the reasons that Lauber concludes that the Elihu speeches are not unified, but were likely composed in stages, perhaps as an independent commentary on the book, and only incorporated into the text secondarily (cf. LAUBER, Weisheit, 397–408 et passim; PILGER, Erziehung, 138–230 et passim, also considers the Elihu speeches to have been composed in several layers, though the two differ significantly in their textual divisions and relative chronologies). 212 WITTE, Leiden, 174; followed by KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 63. But the way Witte frames the argument is problematic: “wäre die Kritik des Elihudichters unverständlich, wenn er bereits auf die seiner eigenen Theologie nahestehenden Abschnitte der Niedrigkeits- und der Gerechtigkeitsredaktion hätte zurückblicken können” (174). While this may be true of at least some of the material he attributes to the Gerechtigkeitsredaktion, at least in 27:13–23, the theology of the vision is directly reinterpreted by Elihu, so that is no argument against the vision’s own originality.

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If this supports Witte’s argument that the third speech cycle has been reshaped by secondary scribal activity, however, it by no means proves that the bulk of chs. 24–27 was added secondarily, much less that the whole original dialogue has been redacted. We have already seen how problematic this is in the case of 4:12–21 and 15:11–16, but the case is not much better for his other proposals. One of the most plausible is that 12:7–13:2 and ch. 26 were both added in the same Majestätsredaktion, since ch. 12 is indeed unique among Job’s earlier speeches in several ways that resemble ch. 26.213 Like 26:2–13, 12:9–25 lacks any first-person forms, and 12:7–8 is one of only three passages that parallel the second-person singular address of the friends in 26:2–4.214 What follows is in both cases entirely in the third person, and lacks Job’s characteristic emphasis on his own experience. The passage in ch. 12 also stands out as the only place in the dialogue where the divine name YHWH appears, in 12:9,215 and it is linked to ch. 26 by some distinctive vocabulary and imagery.216 Finally, the whole is framed by the repetition of 12:3a, “But I have a mind just like you; I am not inferior to you [ ‫לא־נפל אנכי‬ ‫]מכם‬,” in 13:2, “What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you [‫]לא־נפל אנכי מכם‬.” That this chapter also occupies a similar position relative to the first speech cycle to that occupied by chs. 26–28 relative to the third, might also support the suggestion that both are secondary.217 213

WITTE, Leiden, 179–182, 191, assigns 12:7–13:2; 26:1–14; 27:5, 11–12; 28:1–14, 20–28; 29:1 and 39:13–18 all to this redactional layer, but most of these are dubious. While 12:7–8 and 26:2–4 address an interlocutor in the 2nd Sg., 27:11–12 address a 2nd Pl. audience, so it is strange to assign them to the same redactor, while ch. 28 reflects a very different perspective than any of these other passages. That 39:13–18 belongs to such a redactional layer is not impossible, but far from certain. 214 The distinctiveness of this usage is further highlighted by the fact that Job had already used 2nd Pl. forms in 12:2. 215 Though this may be a scribal error, as a few MSS read ‫יד־אלוה‬, and ‫ יד־יהוה‬could be an unconscious reflection of the more common phrase, particularly through influence from Isa 41:20, which Job 12:9 closely parallels; so DHORME, Job, 173–74; POPE, Job, 91; HARTLEY, Job, 208–9 n. 4. Others maintain ‫ יד־יהוה‬and see this as a hold-over from the poet’s source material, e.g. FOHRER, Hiob, 233. GORDIS, Job, 138, sees this as an “unconscious usage” of Is 41:20 by the poet; CLINES, Job, 1.294–95, calls it a quotation of “a well-worn idiom”; SEOW, Job, 633, also accepts it. The whole verse is missing from OG, or in any case marked with asterisks. 216 WITTE, Leiden, 151–52, notes especially the reference to God’s “hand” (‫ ;יד‬12:9; 26:13), God’s unique cleverness (‫ ;תבונה‬12:12–13; 26:12), God’s unique power (‫;גבורה‬ 12:13; 26:14), and the binding of the waters (‫ עצר במים‬in 12:15; ‫ צרר־מים‬in 26:8). ‫תבונה‬ and ‫ גבורה‬are both rare in Job, occurring elsewhere only in 32:11, and in 39:19; 41:4, respectively. Witte also notes that there is a distinctly higher concentration of hapax legomena in 12:7–25 compared to the rest of chs. 13–14. 217 WITTE, Leiden, 151 n. 369, notes that a number of others have also concluded that significant portions of ch. 12 are secondary, including e.g. FOHRER, Hiob, 240, 244–46; HESSE, Hiob, 97; WAHL, Schöpfer, 177–78. On the other hand, TUR-SINAI, Job, 214–15;

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Nevertheless, even here the case is debatable. Gray is correct that “whatever its origin, the emphasis [in ch. 12] on the negative aspect of the omnipotence of God reflects the mood of Job throughout the Dialogue.”218 Habel also notes that this is employed in a clear parody of the friends’ arguments, as Job responds to their repeated urging that he inquire of the ancestors (esp. 8:10), by suggesting that they “ask the beasts, and they will teach you, and the birds of the air, and they will tell you” (12:7).219 Thus, even the unusual use of the second-person singular and extended third-person speech more likely reflects Job’s parody of the friends’ style than a genuine shift in perspective. With Gray, therefore, it seems preferable to read 12:9–25 not as a secondary interpolation, but as an imitation or selective quotation from a traditional psalm employed by the original poet.220 No matter the origin or even the originality of ch. 12, however, all of this stands in stark contrast to ch. 26, which emphasizes the speaker’s awe in the face of God’s power.221 While the verbal and thematic parallels with ch. 12 are striking, they do not prove that either ch. 12 or ch. 26 are secondary, much less that they derive from the same redactional layer; they only suggest that the author of ch. 26 may have had ch. 12 in view.222 Therefore, while Witte is likely correct that the present state of the third speech cycle is secondary, the evidence that it results from a sequence of redactions that spanned the whole poetic core of the book is inconclusive, at best.

and GORDIS, Job, 523–24, argue that ch. 12 quotes extensively from earlier sources; cf. also J. GRAY, Job, 213. 218 J. GRAY, Job, 213. Others also argue in favor of the text’s integrity, e.g. HABEL, Job, 215–16; CLINES, Job, 1.285, 288–305; SEOW, Job, 619–629. 219 HABEL, Appeal, 266–67; idem, Job, 219. 220 J. GRAY, Job, 213. If a quotation, Job has retained only the references to the negative side of God’s rule, omitting all reference to justice for the righteous or even any indication that those destroyed deserve it. The Wiederaufnahme in 13:2 is equally consistent with a quotation or parody by the original poet as by a later redactor, especially since it does not appear at the very edges of the anomalous material, but several verses before (12:3 not 12:6) and one verse after (13:2 not 13:1), enclosing material in 12:4–6 and 13:1 that unambiguously reflects Job’s perspective. 221 Better parallels to ch. 12 are found in chs. 21 and 24, where again Job speaks at length in the third person, but does so to reject the friends’ depictions of the fate of the wicked, not to affirm them (the ambiguities in 24:18–24 notwithstanding). The speech in ch. 26 lacks any hint of such a critique. 222 Even less compelling is Witte’s claim that 7:20–21, 9:2–14; 24:5–8, 13–25; 27:7–10, 13–23 and various other passages were all added in a still later Gerechtigkeitsredaktion (WITTE, Leiden, 183–190, 192). Aside from the likelihood that 26:5–14 is already familiar with 9:5–14 and responds to it, the tone in 7:20–21 and 9:2–14 is again entirely different from that in chs. 24 and 27, especially 27:13–23. Even if some of the bitter irony seen in ch. 9 may be detected in 24:1–23 and 27:7–10, this is entirely absent from 27:13–23, so assigning all of this to same redactor is highly problematic.

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A more plausible scenario is suggested by Köhlmoos, who also considers the third speech cycle to be largely secondary, but sees it as a reaction to many of the earlier passages that Witte would claim are secondary insertions.223 Most notably, against Witte’s claim that 4:12–21, 15:11–16 and 25:1–6 were all added at the same time, she argues that the vision is original and foundational to the dialogues, but that ch. 25 is a secondary attempt to reinterpret it, giving it a more cosmological focus.224 Similarly, she sees the anomalous material in chs. 24, 26 and 27 as secondary attempts to affirm the friends’ position regarding the fate of the wicked and the majesty of God, without admitting that Job himself is wicked.225 Köhlmoos rightly sees that these chapters reinterpret the vision and Job’s earlier conclusions in important ways, but it remains problematic to conclude that all of this was added secondarily. The most likely example is 27:13–23, which can very easily be read as a secondary addition.226 It is essentially a paraphrase of the earlier arguments of the friends, but now assigned to Job as the conclusion to his final response to them. Both the content and placement of this text thus strongly imply a secondary attempt to shift Job’s stance towards his friends’ arguments, and the nearly verbatim repetition of 20:29 in 27:13 could imply a different hand than the original poet. Such near-verbatim quotation is seen in the Elihu speeches, but the only precedent in the earlier dialogue is in 25:4, which quotes from 9:2b. That Job quotes Zophar in this way without critique or parody is completely out of character, and much more plausibly read as a late addition than as the original conclusion to Job’s speech. Köhlmoos is also correct that both Bildad’s speech in ch. 25 and Job’s response in ch. 26 significantly shift the perspective on the earlier texts with which Witte linked them, 4:12–21 and 9:5–14 respectively.227 Bildad does not just parrot, but reinterprets the vision in ch. 25, while the tone of Job’s speech in ch. 26 is entirely different than in ch. 9. What Köhlmoos overlooks is the possibility that such shifts could themselves be a feature of the original conclusion of the dialogues, which is supported by the substantial links between 25:2–6 and 26:2–14. This strongly implies that these were originally part of the same speech, and did not derive from two distinct redactional layers. Though their order appears to have been disrupted secondarily, there is no reason to doubt that their content appeared in the original form of the dialogue. This brings us to the final major interpretive approach: the displacement theory. 223

KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 56–66. KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 57–58 n. 3. 225 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 64. Rather than following Witte in offering a detailed reconstruction, she leaves open the precise process of expansion (65–66). 226 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 61. 227 KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 60. 224

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III. Has the Third Speech Cycle Been Accidentally Disrupted? Even those who maintain the present attribution of the text often note that 26:5–14 is tightly linked to 25:2–6, “finish[ing] Bildad’s speech for him.”228 This connection should not be downplayed, as it extends to a number of specific features of the two chapters. While the style of address in 26:2–4 and 14 is paralleled in many of the friends’ speeches – addressing an interlocutor in the second-person singular and closing in the first-person plural – the detached, third-person description in 26:5–13 exactly matches that in 25:2–6. Both chapters also maintain the same perspective on God’s power and supremacy, both respond critically to Job’s speech in ch. 9, and together they even form a coherent structure that each chapter lacks on its own. As many have recognized, there seems to be a natural progression from the depiction of God’s supremacy (25:2–4) in comparison to the heavens (25:5), to human beings on earth (25:6), then to the shades “beneath the waters” (26:5). The further praise of God’s supremacy in creation and combat in 26:6–13 maintains a similar focus, while 26:14 forms a suitable conclusion.229 The “trembling” of the shades in 26:5 and of the pillars of heaven in 26:11 also recalls the “dread” that attends God’s presence in the heavens in 25:2a, and God’s making the heavens “fair” in 26:13 effectively parallels God’ making “peace in his heights” in 25:2b, framing the whole speech. For its part, 26:2–4 could provide the introduction missing from ch. 25, as both 25:2 and 26:5 appear very abrupt in their current locations, but read much more smoothly if 25:2–6 originally appeared between 26:2–4 and 26:5–14.230 But if chs. 25–26 were originally one speech, who was it attributed to? Tur-Sinai and Ginsberg claim that it was originally Job’s speech, and that 228 BALENTINE, Job, 382; similarly, NEWSOM, Contest, 167: “Bildad’s attempt to reintroduce the topic of God’s power and human nothingness (25:1–6) is preempted by Job. Insulting the quality of Bildad’s advice (26:2–4), Job continues his dialogue-ending strategy of taking the friends words into his own speech (26:5–14).” 229 DHORME, Job, lxvii-lxviii, 368–376; POPE, Job, xx, 180–86; GORDIS, Job, 274–281, 534–35; HABEL, Job, 366–67, cf. 368–375; CLINES, Job, 2.626–28, cf. 628–641. 230 We have already seen that 26:5 continues on from 25:6, but it also sits uncomfortably next to 26:4, which echoes the dismissals of a “spirit” as the source of one’s words in 8:2, 15:2 and 16:3. The sudden shift in 26:5 to affirm that “the shades tremble below, the waters and their inhabitants,” is without explanation in the current form of the text. WOLFERS, Orphan Chapter, 387–88, suggests that Job is continuing his rejection of Eliphaz’s vision from 26:4, but even if the vision were (already) attributed to Eliphaz at the time this chapter was composed, it is dubious to read 26:5 as a description of the “spirit” in 4:15. On the other hand, 25:2 can much more easily be read as the answer to the question in 26:4, in effect saying: Is not the one who’s “spirit” you have appealed the same one whose “dominion and dread” are far above us? The rest of 25:2–6 and 26:5–14 smoothly continue this theme by describing God’s supremacy. If the vision was indeed originally attributed to Job, the question in 26:4 echoes the friends’ earlier dismissals of the vision (paralleling 26:14), but 25:2 answers the question in a more positive manner than before.

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25:2–6 was secondarily reattributed to Bildad as a result of some kind of damage to the manuscript.231 They suggest that originally the positive use of the vision in 25:4–6 was intended just like 9:2, as another place where Job appeals to his own vision for support. On this theory, both 4:12–21 and 25:2– 6 were accidentally displaced from speeches of Job, meaning there was originally no positive use of the vision by the friends. This is a dangerously circular argument, requiring us to believe that not one but two of Job’s accounts of the vision have been accidentally displaced into the speeches of the friends, then using each of these purported displacements to support the other. More importantly, to attribute the whole of chs. 25–26 to Job by analogy to ch. 9 ignores the major difference in tone between these speeches. We have seen this in the case of ch. 26, but it is also true of ch. 25. As Clines notes, Job quotes from the vision in 9:2 as part of an accusation of God for abusing his power, but in 25:4 this is quoted in praise of that same power.232 It is difficult to imagine the same author attributing both sentiments to Job. Further, the quotation of 9:2b in 25:4 provides a very fitting introduction to the extended reinterpretation of 9:5–14 in 26:5–14.233 These speeches read very naturally as an originally unified response to Job’s use of the vision, which is much more likely to have been attributed to Bildad than Job, as the distinctive form of address confirms.234 231

TORCZYNER, Hiob, 181; TUR-SINAI, Job, 376–77; GINSBERG, Patient, 102–4; followed in some details by GRUBER, Liturgy, 89; idem, Jewish Study Bible, 1501–2, 1537. Their reconstructions of the original shape of the book differ dramatically, however. TurSinai imagined a dialogue composed of only a single speech cycle, subsequently disrupted and incorrectly reconstructed as three cycles. Ginsberg also thought the dialogues had been widely disrupted at some stage in its history, but he proposes that there were originally two quite independent books of Job: “Job the Patient,” consisted of the prose frame and a brief dialogue, preserved only in fragments now found in the third speech cycle, while “Job the Impatient,” made up the bulk of the poetic core of the book. The two books portrayed Job in diametrically opposed ways, but they were later combined (cf. GINSBERG AND GRUBER, EncJud, 11.342–356; followed by GRUBER, Jewish Study Bible, 1502–3). 232 CLINES, Job, 2.633. 233 The way 25:4–6 blends a direct quotation of Job with a paraphrase from the vision is also very much in line with the procedure seen in 15:14–16, even though it is not here introduced with a citation formula. After how often the vision has been treated as a reflection of Job’s views in the earlier speeches, and the direct attribution to Job in 15:12–16, no citation formula would have been needed by ch. 25, especially if the vision itself originally appeared in ch. 3 rather than ch. 4. It would have been clear that Bildad was quoting Job, especially since 25:4 begins with a verbatim quotation from 9:2. The similar procedure in 15:14–15 also implies that chs. 25–26 are original to the book, and merely their current arrangement and attribution has been disrupted. 234 This is widely recognized, e.g. DHORME, Job, xlvii-xlviii, 368–376; POPE, Job, 180– 86; HABEL, Job, 364–375; CLINES, Job, 2.618–641; J. GRAY, Job, 325–332. Of the 73 reconstructions of chs. 23–27 that Witte surveys (from 1780 to 1990), the only other scholar to attribute ch. 25 to Job was PFEIFFER, Introduction to the Old Testament, 663. Even

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This link can also be supported by reconsideration of Newsom’s suggestion regarding the rhetorical purpose of the third speech cycle.235 Even though 26:5–14 and 27:13–23 seem to concede too much to the friends to be original to Job, 24:18–25 and 27:2–12 can well be read as she proposes, which is supported by Elihu’s responses to them. In that case, however, the whole of chs. 25–26 can be taken as a single speech that originally represented a concession by the friends to Job’s vision.236 By reframing 4:17–19 in terms of God’s supremacy, but then concluding that such a “whisper of a word” pales in comparison to “the thunder of his might” itself, such a speech would have provided a fitting counterpoint to Job’s speech in ch. 24, which correspondingly concedes that the wicked perish – eventually – but also affirms that God fails to save the innocent.237 Together, chs. 25-26* represent a significant shift from the friends’ earlier approach to the vision, but it would also have left the original end of the dialogue much closer to the approach seen at the end of the Babylonian Theodicy. Instead of the one-sided reversal that Newsom suggests, where only Job concedes anything, this implies a coordinated shift from both sides. Each GRUBER, Jewish Study Bible, 1501–2, 1537, recognizes that the 2nd Sg. address in 26:2–4 is characteristic of the friends, not Job, and accordingly attributes 26:2–14 to Bildad, even though he attributes 25:2–6 to Job. He further suggests that 26:2–4 “repeats with slight variations the rhetorical questions addressed to Job by Eliphaz in 4:3–4” (1537), but in fact 26:2–4 is more of an inversion of 4:2–4 than a repetition. Where Eliphaz’s first introduction recalled that Job did strengthen the weak and offered Eliphaz’s own “words,” this (final, if attributed to Bildad) introduction in 26:2–4 asks whether Job would help without strength, and challenges the source of his “words.” This could in principle be taken as a sign that this introduction is after all correctly attributed to Job, and represents a response to Eliphaz’s opening offer of encouragement. In that case, the use of 2nd Sg. forms might be compared to Job’s apparent parodies of the friends in 12:7–8 and 16:3. This is possible, but given that the friends’ own position has shifted considerably since Eliphaz’s opening encouragement, it is equally possible to see this as another sign of that shift, whereby the friends have lost whatever faith they initially had in Job’s innocence. As the introduction to Bildad’s final speech, it offers an appropriate frame for the friends’ speeches as a whole. 235 NEWSOM, Contest, 164–68. 236 WITTE, Leiden, 154, rejects the suggestion that ch. 26 was originally attached to ch. 25 and attributed to one of the friends on the grounds that its cosmological focus is unprecedented in their earlier speeches. But as a partial concession to Job’s interpretation of the vision in ch. 9 – from which it draws a great deal of language and imagery – such a novel focus is certainly not enough to require attribution to a later redactor. 237 That Job could affirm such a thing is not as improbable as many claim. Job has often affirmed that mortals in general perish, so while a claim that the wicked do so stands in tension with ch. 21 (which may itself be parody), it is in keeping with his larger emphasis on God’s indiscriminate destruction (cf. 9:22). It is not the accounts of the destruction of the wicked in 24:18–24 and 27:7–10, but the affirmation that the righteous are spared in 27:17 that truly contradicts Job’s position. Job by no means affirms the latter in anywhere in ch. 24; rather he says the opposite (24:12).

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concedes something without abandoning their own core positions in the process. If Newsom is correct that this was a constituent element of the genre of a “wisdom dialogue,” that supports the conclusion that the present order and attribution of chs. 25–26 is indeed secondary.238 Outside ch. 26, however, the other displacements that are often found in the third speech cycle are more debatable. According to the most popular versions of the theory, not only was some or all of ch. 26 originally attributed to Bildad, but portions of chs. 24 and 27 were originally attributed to Zophar, in what would have been a full original third speech cycle on analogy to the first two.239 This is possible but unnecessary in the cases of 24:18–24 and 27:7–12, which can well be read as Job’s backhanded concessions to the friends. The more interesting case is 27:13–23. Its close conformity to the friends’ characteristic style of address, right down to their reuse of Job’s and the vision’s language to describe the fate of the wicked, supports seeing it too as an original part of one of their speeches, but there are difficulties here not present in ch. 26. The most significant is the problem of finding an original location for this material. Many have attempted to reconstruct an original third speech for Zophar by combining 27:13–23 with portions of ch. 24 and 27:7–12, but even if the latter were displaced, they cannot be as easily combined with 27:13–23 as the material in chs. 25 and 26 can be coordinated.240 Nor is it likely that 27:13–23 alone constituted Zophar’s final speech, as it lacks any kind of an introduction or conclusion. Regardless of how it is reconstructed, however, there is nowhere plausible to insert such a speech. If chs. 25–26* was Bildad’s original final speech, and 27:2–12 was Job’s response, then a final speech by Zophar would have had to follow this, effectively giving the friends the last word in the dialogue, which Zophar uses to reaffirm the very

238 At 19 verses, 25:1–6 + 26:2–14 would be very close to the length of each of Bildad’s previous speeches: ch. 8 was 22 verses, and ch. 18 was 21. 239 For instance, HABEL, Job, 37–38, cf. 351–401, suggests that 25:1–6 and 26:5–14 were originally attributed to Bildad, while ch. 24 and 27:13–23 were originally attributed to Zophar. Job responded to Eliphaz in ch. 23, to Bildad in 26:1–4 and 27:1–12, and then to all of the friends in ch. 28. Alternatively, CLINES, Job, 1.lix, 2.v, assigns 23:1–24:17 to Job, 26:2–4, 25:2–6 and 26:5–14 to Bildad, 27:1–6, 11–12 to Job, and 27:7–10, 13–17, 24:18–24, 27:18–23 to Zophar (cf. 2.572–677). He also transfers the Elihu speeches to follow ch. 27 and considers ch. 28 to be Elihu’s final speech. 240 For instance, HABEL, Job, 355–58, 384–85, considers the possibility that ch. 24 is “an independent poem” by the author (358), possibly at some point attributed to Zophar, and leaves 27:13–23 a disconnected fragment, also attributed to Zophar, which may have originally been followed by ch. 24. He makes no further attempt to link or coordinate them. CLINES, Job, 2.651–63, goes further to rearrange the two passages, with 27:7–10+27:13– 17+24:18–24+27:18–23 attributed to Zophar. It is not clear how he thinks such fragments of varying sizes could have become so disordered.

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position that Job has already subverted in ch. 21, and even Bildad undermined in chs. 25-26*.241 A better alternative is suggested by the nearly verbatim repetition of 20:29 in 27:13. This raises the possibility that there never was an original third speech from Zophar, and this material is the original end of his second speech in ch. 20.242 If 27:14–23 originally followed 20:29, this could explain the overall similarity of tone and theme with the rest of ch. 20, and why 27:13 is slightly expansionistic compared to 20:29. The points where ch. 21 directly contradicts 27:13–23 might also support such a placement. In addition to the examples noted above, compare how 27:14–15 foretells the death of the children of the wicked, then affirms that “their widows make no lamentation,” while 21:11–12 declares that their children dance, sing and rejoice. It is easier to imagine the latter responding to the former than vice versa, which suggests that 27:14–15 originally appeared before ch. 21. In fact, the whole of 27:13– 23 seems to presuppose a stage of the argument before Job’s inversion of the friends’ accounts of the fate of the wicked in ch. 21, so ch. 20 would seem to be the last plausible place for it to have appeared. Therefore, if 27:13-23 has been displaced, it is more likely to have been from Zophar’s second speech than from a now wholly absent third speech. There are several problems with this conclusion, however. First, such a placement would mean that ch. 20 was originally the longest of the friends’ speeches since Eliphaz’s first, which would be surprising.243 Second, the reference to “the righteous” in 27:18 would be unique in the second speech cycle, which otherwise focuses exclusively on the fate of the wicked. Further, apart from the repetition of 20:29 itself, there are no clear structural linkages to ch. 20 such as those seen in chs. 3–4 and 25–26.244 Finally, the repetition 241 Even assuming ch. 28 is original, and reading it as Job’s final rejection of the friends’ human search for wisdom (as HABEL, Job, 38, suggests), still leaves Zophar with the final word of the dialogue proper. JONES, Rumors, 241–44, also sees in ch. 28 a rejection of the friends’ search for wisdom and an affirmation of Job’s integrity. 242 HARTLEY, Job, 25, WITTE, Leiden, 191, KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 57–58, and NÕMMIK, Freundesreden, 85–88, all deny that Zophar ever had a third speech. I am not aware of any previous suggestion that 27:13–23 could have originally appeared at the end of ch. 20, though it seems too obvious a possibility to have never been raised. 243 At 38 verses, it would be equal to the suggested original length of chs. 4–5 (without 4:12–21), and longer than any other speech by the friends. 244 It might also be asked whether an original placement of 27:14–23 after 20:29 would leave the latter speech redundant, but despite the overall similarity of theme and tone, there is surprisingly little overlap of specific claims outside of 20:29 and 27:13 themselves. The closest similarities are the references to children in 20:10 and 27:14, but the first merely portrays them begging, the second implies their death. There are also references to houses in 20:19 and 27:18, but the first refers to seizing a house that the wicked did not build, while the latter refers to building their own house “like a moth.” It may also be objected that the speech in ch. 20 is complete on its own, and ends satisfactorily with 20:29, but the

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of 20:29 itself is without precedent in the other passages commonly claimed to have been displaced. It is easier to imagine such a repetition occurring intentionally than accidentally. These difficulties may not be insurmountable, but they do leave this case significantly more debatable than those in chs. 3–4 and 25–26. More importantly, they have serious implications for the usual means of explaining all of these apparent displacements. Many who appeal to displacement are rather vague about the means by which such dislocations are thought to have occurred, but they typically affirm that they were accidental.245 Greenstein makes this explicit, appealing to the possibility that manuscript pages could have been accidentally displaced in chs. 24–27 to argue that the same could have also occurred in chs. 3–4.246 He does not actually discuss these parallels, but simply affirms that they have been displaced “by mistake.”247 As an explanation for the shape of the third speech cycle, such a displacement theory does have certain points in its favor. Aside from the fact that that 26:5–14 and 27:13–23 seem to reflect the perspective of the friends, it is intriguing to note that each is almost exactly the same length as 4:1–11 and 4:12–21, approximately 75 words each.248 If Greenstein is correct that the manuscript had a page length of that size, then theoretically these passages also could have each filled separate manuscript pages that also came apart and were reattached in the wrong order. This would explain why these passages still sound so much like the earlier dialogues, just attributed to the wrong people. Under close scrutiny, however, the theory falls apart. First, it must be acknowledged that no amount of reshuffling will produce a full third speech cycle, as we only have one extant speech introduction that can plausibly be attributed to Bildad or Zophar, in 26:2–4.249 Though Clines assigns 27:7–10 speech as a whole is only loosely structured, and is not unduly disrupted by the inclusion of 27:13–23 at the end. 245 E.g. HABEL, Job, 37–38, says simply that these speeches have “apparently suffered some dislocation” (37), without explaining how or why (similarly, CLINES, Job, lix). DHORME, Job, xliv-li, cxciii-xcxiv, is explicit that the dislocations were accidental (xlvi), but gives no further details (similarly, HARTLEY, Job, 24–26); GORDIS, Job, 534–35, thinks “the pages of the manuscript from which our text is descended were disarranged” (535). 246 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 260–62. Unlike Tur-Sinai and Ginsberg, he does not resort to the circular argument that ch. 25 should also be reassigned to Job. 247 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 261. 248 4:1–11 is 76 Hebrew words, 4:12–21 is 75, 26:5–14 is 74, and 27:13–23 is 75 words. 249 This objection is not fatal to the theory, as it could well be imagined that some passages or parts thereof were not just misplaced but actually lost, including the original introduction to Zophar’s final speech, assuming he had one (Cf. GORDIS, Job, 535). Moreover, DHORME, Job, xlvii, claims that Eliphaz in ch. 22 and Job in ch. 23 also lack speech introductions, and suggests that it may be characteristic of the third speech cycle as a

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that role (attributing 27:11–12 to Job), that is problematic both on the level of content and logistics. It requires dismissing the affinity between 27:7 and Job’s first-person style, and the likelihood that 27:8–10 is ironic. It also significantly complicates the kind of displacement that must be assumed. If passages as short as 27:7–10 and 27:11–12 have been displaced, we can no longer imagine the simple exchange of manuscript pages in a scroll that has come apart at the seams. Some more serious damage must be assumed, leaving the whole enterprise much more subjective and speculative.250 The same problem also applies to 25:1–6, 26:2–4 and 24:18–24, if the latter is also considered displaced. None of these are long enough to have filled whole pages, while 27:2–12 is too long compared to 4:1–11, 4:12–21, 26:5– 14 and 27:13–23.251 Therefore it cannot simply be that a few manuscript pages now appear out of order; there are too many little bits of text to account for. And even if it were presumed that 26:5–14 and 27:13–23 are the only displacements, and each filled separate pages, they cannot be shifted by any multiple of 75 words to produce a plausible text, as the pieces that surround them are not the length that would be implied by such a theory, nor are they disrupted at any comparable distance away. In short, chs. 24–27 are not like 4:1–11 and 4:12–21 where we might imagine two pages being swapped without further consequences. Here we would have to reconstruct a much more complicated process of damage and displacement to explain this accidentally. Moreover, while the fragments to be moved here are not as self-contained as 4:12–21, assigning 26:5–14 and 27:13–23 to discrete manuscript pages would once again require multiple passages to begin or end right at the page breaks. Now instead of just three

whole to omit them. This is true of ch. 23, but as we have seen, ch. 22 begins with what may well be a paraphrase of Job, an introductory tactic probably also reflected in ch. 20, while both chs. 26 and 27 begin with introductory addresses, even though only the latter sounds like the Job of earlier speech cycles. 250 Of course, complexity is not itself proof that it did not happen that way, but the more complicated the reconstruction, the greater the danger of remaking the text according to our own preconceptions of what it should say rather than allowing the text that we have to drive our interpretation. 251 At 65 words 25:1–26:4 is only marginally shorter than the approx. 75 words in each of those other passages, and could be brought up to the expected length with the inclusion of the 8 words in 24:25 (since 24:18–24 are also frequently taken to be out of place, a break between 24:24 and 24:25 is not implausible; 24:18–24 is only 59 words, but as we have seen, it is not necessary to assume that it has been displaced). But if 26:5–14 originally followed 25:6, as argued above, then 26:2–14 as a whole cannot have originally appeared on one page, leaving 26:2–4 a disconnected fragment at only 23 words (26 words if 26:1 is included). By contrast, 27:2–12 is 89 words, nearly 20% longer than the page size Greenstein proposes, yet would presumably also have to have filled one complete manuscript page for passages on both sides of it to be displaced.

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coincidental page breaks – surrounding 4:1–11 and 4:12–21 – we would need at least a half dozen.252 Finally, the poorer the state of preservation that we attribute to the original manuscript, the more conscious editorial activity we must in any case allow to the scribe(s) who purportedly reconstructed it. At the very least, whoever we imagine to have set the text in its present order must have added one or more of the introductory formulae in 25:1, 26:1 and 27:1, and it is doubtful that they were wholly ignorant of the significance of those attributions for the content they now introduce.253 Can he or she really have had no notion that the passages now attributed to Job in 26:2–14 and 27:13–23 much more closely resemble the friends’ style and viewpoint than Job’s own? Was this really all accidental? To add so much complexity to a theory that already depended on a great deal of happenstance seems to me a bridge too far, especially when combined with the conclusion that chs. 3–4 were also accidentally disrupted. That the (only available?) manuscript of Job could have suffered some sort of physical damage and been incorrectly reconstructed is not itself implausible, but the idea that the only two places in the book where this occurred – in chs. 3–4 and 25–27 – both directly relate to the attribution and interpretation of the vision, strongly suggests that these anomalies are not coincidental. Therefore, while it does appear most likely that the material now attributed to Job in 26:2–14 was originally written for one of the friends, the suggestion that the present form of the text is accidental is not credible. While Tur-Sinai, Ginsberg and Greenstein are correct to suggest a link between the anomalies in chs. 3–4 and 24–27, that link is more likely to lie in the intentional activity of a redactor than the accidental vagaries of a decaying manuscript. IV. Intentional Displacement and the Reframing of the Vision By now it should be clear that none of the above theories accounts for all of the anomalies in chs. 24–27 on its own, but each highlights significant aspects of the text that are overlooked by proponents of the others. Too often these are treated as mutually exclusive alternatives, when they can in fact complement one another. First, the synchronic approaches rightly alert us to the fact that Job and his friends are not above shifting their positions – they do so throughout the dialogues – and there are indications that these final speeches may have always been intended to reflect a measure of compromise and inversion. What they miss is the way these very shifts are disrupted by 252 The only way I could see to explain such a state would be to assume that an early scribe tended to end pages at section breaks, accidentally facilitating their later displacement – a purely ad hoc explanation. 253 The repetition of 20:29 in 27:13 also implies a conscious hand, even if only to secondarily provide an introduction to the fragment that follows in 27:14–23.

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the current shape of the text, which leaves Job parroting the friends’ arguments while their own compromise has been heavily curtailed, if not deliberately obscured. The accidental displacement theories recognize that chs. 25– 26, just like chs. 3–4, appear to have been disordered secondarily, but their suggestion that these displacements occurred due to damage to the manuscript depends on too much coincidence. Finally, the redactional supplementation theories rightly emphasize that the placement of this material seems to be both secondary and intentional, implying a deliberate shift in perspective regarding Job’s and the friends’ positions, but their model of multiple discrete layers is overly complex, and underestimates the essential link between 25:2– 6 and 26:5–14. What is seldom recognized under any of these theories is that all of the significant shifts seen in these chapters are directly linked to Job’s interpretation of the vision, and radically invert it. The alternative I propose is straightforward and requires neither happenstance nor a lengthy process of sequential changes, even if either or both could have also played some role in the history of the text. I suggest that all of the essential features of the text can be explained with a simple, two-step development, in which the original end of Job’s dialogue with his friends was secondarily reframed through the attribution of 26:2–14 and 27:13–23 to Job. These moves were by no means accidental, but represent a direct and deliberate inversion of Job’s stance towards the vision, complementing and completing the displacement already suggested in chs. 3–4. The three disruptions are not only parallel, but intimately linked, and serve the same purpose: to obscure Job’s dependence on the vision and reverse his most subversive conclusions from it. Beginning with the probable original form of chs. 22–27, Newsom’s parallel with the end of the Babylonian Theodicy demonstrates that it is unnecessary to assign every divergence from the earlier speeches to a later redactor or accidental disruption. In particular, there is no question that chs. 22–23 and 27:2–6 are original. The first two offer a clear summation of the friends’ (ch. 22) and Job’s (ch. 23) positions, restating the conclusions each side has come to. Job 27:2–6, by contrast, points forward to Job’s final monologue in chs. 29–31. It is also probable that ch. 24 and 27:7–12 are also original, for while they certainly shift Job’s position, they can be read without great difficulty as part of an original attempt to bring closure to the dialogue as a whole, comparable to the way Job closed each of the first two speech cycles with parodies of the friends’ position in chs. 12 and 21. The manner of third-person speech in ch. 24 is indeed reminiscent of that in chs. 12 and 21, as even the redaction critics often recognize when they assign portions of the latter two chapters to late redactional layers. The conclusions in 24:18–24 and 27:7–12 are distinctive, but also sufficiently ambiguous to be read as a kind of tongue-in-cheek “compromise” on Job’s part. In both, Job either describes or calls for the destruction of the wicked even while suggesting that God ignores the cries of

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the innocent (24:12; cf. 27:9–10) and supports the wicked in the interim (24:22–23).254 This is a concession to the friends, but it is an ironic one, well in keeping both with the approach of Job’s earlier speeches, and with his larger argument that God “destroy[s] both the blameless and the wicked” (9:22). Yet where Newsom thought this inversion of perspective only went one way,255 a recognition that the vision was originally attributed to Job suggests that ch. 25 could have also been originally intended to offer the other side of that “compromise,” as here alone one of the friends makes positive use of the vision’s imagery. In fact, to accept the lowliness of humanity and incorporate it into an acclimation of God’s supremacy reflects an even greater shift in Bildad’s position than ch. 24 implies in Job’s. Though the adjustments to the vision introduced in 25:5–6 and its new context bring the portrayal of human lowliness much more closely in line with the friends’ views than 4:17–21 itself was, ch. 25 still undermines the clear dichotomy between the innocent and the wicked that each of the friends has defended. But as everyone recognizes, ch. 25 is not a complete speech on its own. It has no introduction or conclusion, and at only five verses, it is far shorter than any other speech in the book. Moreover, if this was intended to offer the friends’ counterpoint to Job’s “concession” in ch. 24, it seems altogether too abrupt and incomplete in its present form. Chapter 25, as we currently have it, lacks any overt critique, implying a more complete capitulation to Job’s position than the parallels in ch. 24 and 27:7–12 would lead us to expect. Yet if the material in ch. 26 also originally appeared in Bildad’s speech, we find precisely the kind of critical edge to Bildad’s “compromise” currently missing. Taking 25:2–6 and 26:5–14 together, we find a consistent perspective on God’s supremacy and power that is well in keeping with the friends’ perspective, but that nevertheless takes a new stance toward the vision. Whereas in ch. 15 and elsewhere the friends quote or allude to the vision to reject its claims, Bildad now quotes from both Job’s invocation of the vision in 9:2 and Eliphaz’s paraphrase in 15:14–16, not to repudiate the vision, but to praise God’s power. This admits a lower view of humanity than the friends have otherwise been willing to entertain, but it also pushes back against Job’s own accusatory use of the vision in ch. 9. Similarly, the depiction of God’s supremacy in 26:5–13 echoes Job’s use of the same imagery in ch. 9, but stripped of its subversive edge. Finally, the conclusion in 26:14, so out of place on Job’s lips, is an apt conclusion for Bildad. Having just conceded to the vision that human beings are of no account before God – without thereby 254

It would also be possible to conclude, as many do, that 24:18–24 is indeed disrupted, perhaps through the insertion of 24:24, and that Bildad’s concession in chs. 25–26* corresponds merely to that in 27:7–12. 255 NEWSOM, Contest, 164–68.

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accepting either the vision’s apparent condemnation of God’s servants, nor the conclusion that destruction is indiscriminate – Bildad concludes that after all such a “whisper of a word” cannot compare to “the thunder of [God’s] might” itself. Here we find a speech that we can well imagine as a corollary to Job’s “concession” that the wicked are also cursed, and 26:2–4 provides a fitting introduction. Though many wish to retain this for Job, the style of address is much better in keeping with the friends’ usual approach than Job’s. The question in 26:4 closely parallels the friends’ earlier challenges to the vision in 8:2 and 15:2, and frames the speech as a whole with the dismissal in 26:14. Like Job’s “concession” in ch. 24, this speech subtly undermines the very compromise it seems to offer, bringing closure to the dialogue without actually releasing the tension between Job’s position and the friends’. Therefore, while Newsom saw the parallel with the Babylonian Theodicy as a means of maintaining the present attribution of the text, it can now be seen to confirm that the present order is secondary, as the current attribution of 26:2–14 to Job disrupts this structure. As the displacement theorists recognize, it appears most probable that chs. 25 and 26 were originally one speech, and only secondarily disorganized. Job’s response in 27:2–12, perhaps originally introduced with 26:1,256 would have concluded Job’s dialogue with his friends, anticipating his final monologue with the oath of innocence in 27:2–6, and dismissing the friends’ “nonsense” in 27:7–12. The material now appearing in 27:13–23, however, is very unlikely to have formed the original conclusion to that speech. It completely lacks any plausible reflections of Job’s style, and cannot be read as a parody of the friends. Not only is it essentially a repetition of their perspective on the fate of the wicked, but it even reverts the conversation to a point prior to Job’s parody of this form in ch. 21. It directly parallels the friends’ earlier view of the dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked, which Bildad himself has now questioned, and even echoes their tendency to use the vision’s language to describe the wicked. For Job to speak in this way, even if only in imitation of the friends, would imply a complete reversal of his perspective on God’s judgment, undermining both his prior use of the vision and his own claims to unjust suffering. It simply cannot be imagined that the same poet who so effectively and tantalizingly shifts the terms of the debate in 23:1–27:12 would conclude with such a straightforward reaffirmation of the friends’ earlier position, and no appeal to a (thoroughly implicit) sarcastic tone or “madness” makes such a conclusion plausible.

256 Of the two options, it seems more likely that 27:1 has been added secondarily, perhaps on analogy to 29:1, due to the use of ‫יסף‬, which suggests that Job continues after having just spoken.

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Unlike 26:2–14, however, it is much more difficult to account for 27:13– 23 through simple displacement. Though it is commonly attributed to Zophar – often in combination with some or all of ch. 24 and 27:7–12 – there is no evidence that Zophar ever had a third speech, and it is doubtful that it would have represented such a flat-footed return to the state of the debate as it stood in the second speech cycle. Indeed, I see no reason to attempt to reconstruct a full original third speech cycle, including a now lost speech of Zophar. His absence may after all have been intentional, a sign that the friends have nothing more to say. If Eliphaz has already carried the friends’ original argument to its final conclusion in ch. 22, and Bildad has made a token concession to Job and his vision in chs. 25–26*, what more remains to be said? A more plausible original location of 27:13–23 may be at the end of Zophar’s second speech, in ch. 20, but apart from the repetition of 20:29 there are no obvious structural linkages between the two passages of the sort evident in chs. 3–4 and 25–26 respectively. More significantly, an original placement after 20:28 would overextend the speech and introduce an explicit contrast with “the righteous” that is otherwise absent from the second speech cycle. Thus, while an original location in ch. 20 is more likely than a now wholly missing third speech of Zophar, it appears better to conclude with Witte and Köhlmoos that 27:13–23 is modeled on the friends’ arguments, rather than being displaced from one of them. At the same time, however, there are good reasons to link this passage to the displacements in chs. 3–4 and 25–26. Job’s reversal in 27:13–23 is no isolated anomaly, attributable to a still later hand than those. It is part and parcel of a unified attempt to reframe the dialogue. While most of those who have recognized one or both of the former displacements assume that they occurred accidentally, this is highly unlikely. Apart from the lack of a plausible mechanism by which full passages such as 4:12–21 can be neatly dislocated by accident, the double introduction of Job in 26:1 and 27:1 also strongly implies an intentional hand, and there is no reason to doubt that the person who attributed ch. 26 to Job was unaware of the dramatic shift this represents from his earlier speeches, especially in ch. 9. By the same token, the attribution of 27:13–23 to Job, appearing as it does at the conclusion to his final response to the friends, is highly unlikely to be accidental. Both its placement just before the wisdom poem and Job’s final monologue, and its distance from any plausible original location, imply that it was placed here deliberately. The massive contradiction this introduces into Job’s position also cannot have been lost on any scribe who had read the preceding two speech cycles. That both of these texts directly invert Job’s conclusions from the vision is also unlikely to be a coincidence. If the vision was originally attributed to Job, then the disruptions in the third speech cycle go well beyond the usual suggestion of “a pious scribe who wished to mute Job’s heterodoxy by giving

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him some ‘proper’ sentiments.”257 That is more or less Pope’s view, who suggests that a similar set of shifts could reflect “a deliberate attempt to refute Job’s argument by confusing the issue.”258 I would argue that the purpose of these moves was not only to “mitigate Job’s shocking charges against God,”259 nor to rescue the perspective of the friends, but to shift the portrayal of the vision within the book. The attribution to Job of a positive portrayal of God’s supremacy in ch. 26, and of the dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked in ch. 27 directly reverse the two most important conclusions he drew from the vision itself in earlier speeches: That God considers none righteous and abuses his power to destroy indiscriminately. Therefore both the original conclusion to the dialogue and its secondary reframing represent direct responses to the vision. Originally, Bildad’s final speech presented the friends’ concession of human lowliness, while recontextualizing the vision itself as an expression of God’s supremacy. Secondarily, the same association was maintained, but transferred to Job’s lips, and supplemented with a reversal of Job’s foremost conclusion from the vision: that God does not distinguish between the righteous and the wicked. That the vision should play such a prominent role in the conclusion and final reshaping of the dialogue may be surprising, but it should not be. If the vision really did form the conclusion to Job’s first speech, and underwrites as much of his subsequent argumentation as we have seen, it is entirely plausible that it should have been the focus on the friends’ final concession to Job, just as Job’s own final concession is tied to the friends’ most prominent argument: that the wicked perish. In that light, I propose the following reconstruction of both the original and final forms of the text, and suggest that both can be read smoothly as the product of intention, not accident. All that is necessary is the inversion of 4:1–11 with 4:12–21, the displacement of 25:2–6 and 26:1 before 26:2–4, and the addition of 27:1, 13–23260: 257

NEWSOM, Contest, 161. POPE, Job, XXVII, cf. XX, 174.196. His reconstruction of the text itself is very similar to Habel’s, combining 26:5–14 with 25:2–6 as Bildad’s final speech, and 27:8– 23+24:18–20+24:22–25 as Zophar’s final speech. J. GRAY, Job, 59–62, 328, also admits the possibility of deliberate displacements, as well as additions. 259 POPE, Job, XXVI. 260 I fully admit that the actual compositional history of these chapters could have been much more complicated than this, but there is no a priori reason why it had to have been: These relatively simple shifts explain all the important points that need explaining at least as well as the more complex proposals on offer, even if further refinement is also possible. Though life is always more complicated than we can model, even in hindsight, increasing the complexity of our reconstructions does not necessarily increase the likelihood that they are accurate; it only increases the level of subjectivity and potential for distortion. Simple explanations are necessarily approximations, but that very fuzziness makes them preferable 258

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Original Attribution

Original Order

Present Attribution

Present Order

Job Job Eliphaz Eliphaz … Zophar Job Eliphaz Job Bildad Bildad

3:1–26 4:12–21 4:1–11 5:1–27 … 20:1–29 21:1–34 22:1–30 23:1–24:25 25:1 26:2–4

Bildad Bildad Job Job

25:2–6 26:5–14 26:1 27:2–12

Job Eliphaz Eliphaz Eliphaz … Zophar Job Eliphaz Job Bildad Bildad Job Job Job Job Job Job

3:1–26 4:1–11 4:12–21 5:1–27 … 20:1–29 21:1–34 22:1–30 23:1–24:25 25:1 25:2–6 26:1 26:2–4 26:5–14 27:1 27:2–12 27:13–23261

These changes are all very simple, but highly unlikely to be accidental. More importantly, there is ample precedent for all of them in the reception history of the Hebrew Bible. The phenomenon of “variant literary editions” demonstrates that the reorganization of biblical material was common in the early reception of many biblical books, and need not be attributed to accidental displacement.262 For instance, the Greek papyrus of Ezekiel P967 boasts a number of significant differences from MT, one of which is that Ezek 37 appears after chs. 38–39. Many scholars have argued that this represents an older order of the text, and that MT reflects a secondary shift made for ideological reasons, in part due to its link with the potentially secondary passage in 36:23c–28, which is absent from P967.263 For the sake of the present arguwhen we are dealing with a phenomenon that is ultimately unverifiable – baring the unanticipated discovery of the autographs. 261 Alternatively, 27:13–23 might perhaps have followed 20:28, and been displaced rather than added. In that case, 20:29 // 27:13 would have appeared only once, and would have been replicated when this material was transferred to ch. 27. 262 On “variant literary editions” see esp. ULRICH, Origin, 99–120; TOV, Textual Criticism, esp. 283–326. 263 Due to the poor preservation of Ezekiel at Qumran, P967 is the oldest largely complete manuscript of the book extant in any language; its order is also supported by the Old Latin Codex Wirceburgensis, which appears to be independent of P967 (5th C. CE); cf. e.g. KLEIN, Schriftauslegung, esp. 59–77, 374–378; LILLY, Two Books, 11–23, 301–310, and the literature they cite. BLOCK, Ezekiel, 337–343, argues against the originality of the text attested by these witnesses, but even he is forced to appeal to intentional displacement to account for them, merely in the opposite direction (341). Other Greek MSS parallel the MT order of chs. 37–39, as does the early Harodian MS found at Masada, MasEzek.

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ment it makes little difference which form of the text is earlier, however, as either way an inversion has occurred that is unlikely to have been accidental.264 Nor is such a phenomenon particularly rare, as the manuscript traditions of many books of the Hebrew Bible include significant differences in sequence, as Tov and Ulrich especially have emphasized.265 In the case of Job, OG is famously one sixth shorter than MT, and includes numerous changes as well as a couple of significant additions.266 As we will see in Chapter Five, though the bulk of these differences are almost certainly secondary, reflecting a very free translation technique rather than a different Vorlage, they not only show that the book remained problematic and fluid even after the completion of its “final” form; they also directly parallel the very same kind of thematic shifts we have seen, even if carried out by other means, deleting or rewriting many of Job’s harshest accusations, rather than

264 SPOTTORNO, Omisión, 95–97, attempts to account for the differing orders of Ezek 37–38 as the result of an accidental exchange of manuscript pages, but KLEIN, Schriftauslegung, 61–62, notes that this would not only require that two different passages began and ended exactly at the page breaks, but also must ignore the other indications of redactional activity in the text. That is not to say that displacement cannot also occur accidentally, only that it need not be accidental. 265 For example, Jeremiah’s Oracles Against Nations not only appear in a completely different place in OG (after 25:13 instead of after ch. 45 as in MT), but the individual oracles also appear in a different order. In particular, the oracles against Ammon and Edom appear in MT in 49:1–5(+6) and 49:7–22 respectively, while OG reverses them, with Edom in 29:8–23 and Ammon in 30:1–5 (verse 6 in MT, which reverses Ammon’s fate, is absent in OG). Similarly, MT includes the oracle against Damascus in 49:23–27, and the oracle against Kedar and Hazor in 49:28–33, while OG first gives the oracle against Kedar and Hazor in 30:6–11, then that against Damascus in 30:12–16. For a summary of these changes, cf. TOV, Some Aspects, 145–167, idem, Literary History, 211–237; MCKANE, Jeremiah, 1.xv-xxxi, 2.clxiv; for bibliography, cf. TOV, Textual Criticism, 286, cf. 286–297. The shifting of whole oracles makes it highly unlikely that these differences can be attributed to the purely accidental rearrangement of manuscript pages, as Greenstein suggests for Job. There are many other examples as well: Exod 35–40 appears in a different sequence in LXX (possibly original to OG). 4QJosha includes the story of Joshua’s alter before ch. 5 instead of at the end of ch. 8 as in MT (OG places it after 9:1–2). Among other differences from MT, 1 Kgs 20 and 21 are reversed in OG. Among the Psalms scrolls found at Qumran at least five different arrangements are evident, e.g., 11QPsa begins with Ps 101 and has a different order of psalms than MT, along with several additional compositions (11QPsb and perhaps 4QPse confirm some of these variants; the LXX and Peshitta also include additional psalms not found in the MT). LXX Proverbs differs from MT in many ways, including the arrangement of chs. 24–31. On these and other examples, cf. ULRICH, Origin, 25–31, 115–17, cf. 99–120; TOV, Textual Criticism, 283–326; idem, Some Sequence Differences, 151–160. Thanks also to John Quant for helpful discussion of this phenomenon. 266 Cf. DRIVER AND GRAY, Job, lxxiv–lxxv; DHORME, Job, ccii–cciii; SEOW, Job, 111. As they note, the minuses are not evenly distributed, but steadily increase as the book goes along, peaking in the Elihu speeches.

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moving blocks of text.267 Nor is the Old Greek alone in reinterpreting Job in this way. The tendency across the entire early reception of Job is to minimize or eliminate indications of opposition between Job and God, including his accusations that God destroys indiscriminately.268 In that light, it is most probable that the similar shifts in chs. 25–27 are also secondary and intentional. Nor should it be a surprise that these are closely tied to the anomalous position of the vision itself. The problem that the vision posed was not just that Job builds his accusations on it, but that his very reception of it implies that those accusations are justified. If God really did send such a deceptive and subversive vision to Job, then his numerous complaints that God has turned against him are apparently confirmed by God’s own messenger.269 No doubt it is for this very reason that the three friends are not content merely to challenge the vision’s conclusions, but also repeatedly dismiss Job’s own claims to revelation, most directly in 15:2–16. The vehemence of their critique of the vision is driven not simply by the shocking conclusions Job draws from it, but by the audacious claim that they derive from divine revelation.270 As such, the vision would have posed a much more fundamental problem to a developing picture of Job’s piety than even his most extreme accusations in later speeches, for only here are those charges given apparent support by God himself. For that reason, any attempt to modulate Job’s more radical claims would have required, not just a reinterpretation of the vision, but its reattribution. The present attribution of the vision to Eliphaz is thus no accident; it is the primary reason for all of these secondary disruptions.271 Such a motive explains not only the present position of the vision itself in ch. 4 rather than ch. 3, but also the preservation of Bildad’s positive reinterpretation of 4:17–19 in 25:2–6, even though the rest of his speech has been reattributed to Job in ch. 267

Cf. WITTE, Leiden, esp. 226–29. On the secondary character of OG, and its tendency to soften Job’s position, cf. e.g. DHORME, Job, cxcvi–ccvi; SEOW, Job, 6–9, 111–14; GARD, Job’s Character, 182–86. 268 This material is discussed at length in Chapter Five, below. 269 We will see in the next chapter that much of the ambivalent and subversive imagery in 4:12–21 can be read as Job’s own interpretation of his experience, rather than as a reliable guide to its (divine) intent, but the imagery is there regardless, implying that God has indeed turned against Job and allows humans to perish without distinction. 270 Though the vision itself is not explicitly attributed to God, it is strongly implied that it comes from him, and Job confirms this in later speeches (e.g. 6:10; 7:13–14). 271 If the vision has been intentionally displaced, the present location after 4:11 would have been the nearest place to move it, as 4:1–11 holds tightly together. Job 4:6–7 forms a bridge from 4:2–5 to 4:8–11, so insertion of the vision before either 4:6 or 4:7 would have meant an even more serious disruption to the structure of Eliphaz’s speech than its current placement. That this displacement disrupted the parallel between 4:7–11 and 5:1–5, as well as the overall structure of Eliphaz’s speech and of the dialogue as a whole, was apparently a small price to pay to distance Job from it.

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26. This is no clumsy accident, but a deliberate attempt to strengthen the friends’ ties to the vision, and distance Job from it. The reversal of the vision’s conclusions in 27:13–23 completes the picture, and in turn anticipates the much more positive portrayals of Job’s piety that dominate the early reception of the book, as we will see. Together, these moves all served the same purpose: to reframe the vision’s subversive claim that human righteousness is no protection against sudden destruction, and to mask Job’s own reliance on this motif to accuse God. In the end, the attempt appears to have succeeded, as generations of subsequent readers have completely failed to notice how thoroughly Job’s speeches rely on the vision, nor how vehemently his friends repudiate it.

D. Conclusions D. Conclusions

For many recent commentators, diachronic reconstruction is largely irrelevant to their interpretation of Job. It is assumed that the “final form” of the text can be reliably interpreted without reference to its prehistory. What I hope to have demonstrated in this chapter, however, is that even the “final form” of the Masoretic Text cannot be fully understood without an account of its development. Whatever one thinks of the specific diachronic hypothesis offered here, what must not be lost is the evidence to be explained. The vision’s own form and conclusions indisputably tie it to Job, and outside of chs. 4 and 25– 27, all of the subsequent allusions to it within the book confirm that link. Job constantly describes himself in precisely the same ways that the visionary does, while the friends virtually never do so. The friends repeatedly contradict the vision’s conclusions and dismiss its revelatory status throughout chs. 4–22, treating it as a reflection of Job’s views, and even quoting it as the “words” of Job (15:12–16; cf. 8:2–3). Even Elihu directly attributes the vision to Job, though he reinterprets it in important ways. Only its current placement in ch. 4 and the unprecedented shifts in chs. 25–27 suggest any link between the vision and the perspective of the friends, and the tension this creates must not be explained away. That both the vision’s role in ch. 4 and the current shape of the third speech cycle are deeply problematic has long been recognized. My contention is that the two anomalies are by no means coincidental. They are two sides of the same problem, and directly mirror one another: In 4:12–21 a passage is attributed to Eliphaz that clearly reflects Job’s perspective, while in 26:2–14 and 27:13–23 two passages are attributed to Job that clearly reflect the friends’ perspectives. All three contradict the treatment of the vision everywhere else in the book, reframing the entire debate between Job and his friends. Whatever else we conclude, therefore, neither the vision’s current placement in ch. 4, nor the inversions in chs. 25–27 should blind us to the

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central part played by the vision in Job’s complaint. Its challenge to the link between human behavior and divine response is no anomaly within the dialogue, but stands at the heart of its controversy. By challenging human righteousness and insisting that all human beings face the threat of sudden and final destruction, the vision has played a foundational role, not only in Job’s dialogue, but also in its development. I therefore suggest the following proposal for the development of the book’s poetic core: Originally, the vision formed the climax of Job’s opening complaint, justifying his unprecedented curse. Eliphaz and the other two friends respond vigorously in each of their subsequent speeches, but preeminently in chs. 4–5 and 15. Job dismisses their objections and builds his own case directly on the vision’s imagery, arguing that God accounts none righteous and destroys indiscriminately. After Eliphaz’s closing speech in ch. 22 and Job’s response in ch. 23, which summarize the conclusions of the friends and Job respectively, the dialogue was originally brought to a close by allowing Job and Bildad to express partial concessions to the other sides’ positions. Job admits that the wicked perish, but implies that God himself supports them until they do so (ch. 24), while Bildad acknowledges the vision’s affirmation of human lowliness, but reframes it as a sign of divine supremacy and subtly dismisses the vision’s significance (chs. 25–26*). Job then responds with a final oath of innocence and dismissal of the friends in 27:2–12, possibly followed by the wisdom poem in ch. 28 as a kind of intermission before Job’s final monologue in chs. 29–31. The material in 27:13–23 either appeared at the end of Zophar’s second speech in ch. 20, or is simply modelled on it. Regardless, it is doubtful that Zophar ever had a third speech. The original dialogue now complete, Job restates his own position positively in chs. 29–31, awaiting an answer from God, which comes in chs. 38– 41. Before that happens, however, the Elihu speeches interrupt with a new response to Job. Whether secondary or not, these speeches seem to presume the original shape of the dialogue, attributing the vision to Job and responding to it throughout chs. 32–35. Like Bildad’s final speech, Elihu also reframes the vision as an affirmation of divine supremacy, and directly denies Job’s more critical conclusions from it (esp. chs. 33–35, and cf. 32:2). But Elihu does not dismiss the vision as the earlier friends did. He interprets it as a means of divine discipline, intended to bring about repentance, leading to restoration (33:14–18). Nevertheless, the vision remained problematic. Especially in light of the clear emphasis on Job’s innocence in both the prose frame and the book’s earliest reception, the vision’s allusions to divine deception and indiscriminate destruction represent a more basic challenge to God’s justice than even Job’s harshest accusations. Though Job says many controversial things, only here are they granted apparent support by God’s own messenger. It therefore seems that a subsequent scribe sought to remedy that situation, by a simple

D. Conclusions

225

expedient: He or she transferred the vision itself from ch. 3 to ch. 4, left Bildad’s positive interpretation of the vision in 25:2–6, but attributed the rest of his response in 26:2–4 and 26:5–14 to Job. Finally, a forthright reaffirmation of the dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked was added to the end of Job’s final response to his friends, effectively reversing his previous argument, and directly contradicting the vision’s own conclusions. The purpose of all of these reattributions was simple: to obscure Job’s own dependence on the vision and mollify his most extreme criticisms of God’s justice. Even if this reconstruction is not accepted, however, the fact remains that the vision’s role in the book simply cannot be properly evaluated unless it is recognized that it was originally Job’s vision, and that the present form of the book now attributes it to Eliphaz. In the end, the purpose of this foray into diachronic reconstruction has not been to dig up interesting relics from a forgotten past, but to lay out as clearly as possible what it is that the book’s diverse speeches actually affirm about the vision, to allow us to interpret them responsibly and without harmonization. Our ultimate goal, then, is not to secure a certain and indisputable diachronic reconstruction, but to use it as a springboard to the interpretation of the vision’s role in the book as a whole, and to that we now turn.

Chapter 4

“If It Is Not He, Then Who?” The Meaning of the Vision in the Original Dialogue Chapter 4: The Meaning of the Vision Introduction

The simple fact that the vision is quoted by every participant in the dialogues strongly implies that it originally formed the shocking climax to Job’s first speech, rather than an equivocal digression in the midst of Eliphaz’s. The same consideration also rules out Witte’s conclusion that this is a late addition to the book: The vision is not only too subversive to attribute to Eliphaz, it is too central to assign to a redactor. The vision establishes several key points of dispute between Job and his friends, particularly regarding the possibility of human righteousness, the nature of God’s judgment, and the legitimacy of various sources of knowledge. Yet despite the wide-ranging literature on the vision itself, it is surprising how little attention has been paid to how these later quotations and allusions interpret and respond to the vision.1 Those few who have recognized that the vision is Job’s have devoted so much of their attention to establishing that attribution that they spare little space to the meaning of these allusions in context. Building on the indications we have already seen of the contrasting interpretations of the vision throughout the book, it is now time to draw that material together and refocus on the vision’s role in Job’s dispute with his friends. As a number of scholars have recognized, the Joban dialogues reflect not only differing theological conclusions, but also contrasting assumptions about the legitimacy of various sources of knowledge: tradition, private revelations, corporeal experience, and so on. The vision has often been invoked in such discussions, and used to support wide-ranging dichotomies between Job’s and his friends’ perspectives on revelation as a source of knowledge. A fuller account of the vision’s role in the book will demonstrated that such dichotomies overly simplify the material, obscuring the complexity of Job’s debate with his friends, in both its original form (as will be discussed in this chapter), and its final framing (which will be the focus of the next chapter). On the one side, most scholars have accepted the attribution of the vision to Eliphaz and therefore see a contrast between the friends’ reliance on tradi1 Exceptions include J. E. MILLER, Foreshadowing, 98–112; CAESAR, New Thesis, 435–447; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 57–58; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 245–262; HARDING, Metaprophecy, 523–547; but none of them discusses these allusions in detail.

Introduction

227

tion and revelation, and Job’s rejection of both in favor of his own experience. For instance, Gitay contrasts Job’s “humanistic language” with the friends’ “religious language.”2 That is, “Job conveys his own pain – his own personal traumatic experience,”3 while Eliphaz relies on “religious” presuppositions that he considers self-evident.4 Harding also attributes the vision to Eliphaz and maintains a similar contrast between Job’s approach and the friends’, suggesting that the whole book serves as a kind of “metaprophecy,” “a penetrating critique of the idea, central to the prophetical books of the Hebrew Bible, that knowledge of the justice of Israel’s god is authentically revealed by ‘true’ prophets standing in the divine council.”5 Pointing especially to the parallel between 15:7–8 and Jeremiah’s condemnation of the prophets in Jer 23:18, he concludes that Eliphaz denies Job’s access to the divine council on the grounds that he himself has been the recipient of such revelation.6 Harding believes that the book as a whole rejects Eliphaz’s stance, and represents a challenge to “the very claim that divine speech can be authentically discerned, that once discerned it can be ordered systematically, and that this process can engender an attitude that can meaningfully be dubbed ‘obedience.’”7 By contrast, Gruber attributes the vision to Job, and comes to the opposite conclusion. For him Job appeals to revelation while the friends rely on mere “human wisdom.”8 Greenstein also suggests that the vision and its quotations 2

GITAY, Failure, 239–250. GITAY, Failure, 239. 4 GITAY, Failure, 240. The problem, as Gitay sees it, is that Eliphaz fails to realize that what is self-evident to him and his friends is no longer self-evident to Job, namely that there is a cause and effect relation between sin and suffering (240–42, 245). By contrast, Job uses “a universal language of argumentation that avoids theological presupposition” (244). Such “[h]umanistic language responds to the common sense of every human being rather than the confined circle of the same mindset” (244). He claims that YHWH responds in terms of Job’s approach, not the friends’, engaging with Job in personal dialogue, not on the basis of “religious” deduction from a set of shared premises (246–49). 5 HARDING, Metaprophecy, 523 (from the Abstract), cf. 523–547. The concept of “metaprophecy” is taken from Ben Zvi’s work on the Book of Jonah (BEN ZVI, Signs of Jonah, 80–115; cf. DELL, Sceptical Literature, 153–57). 6 HARDING, Metaprophecy, 530–33. He claims that “Job never has, nor does he ever claim to have, access to divine wisdom…. [H]is wisdom consists precisely in his acknowledgment of his lack of wisdom before the covenant god of Israel” (533). This simply ignores all the ways Job depends on the vision, but it is nevertheless true that Job does not claim to derive “wisdom” from the vision. 7 HARDING, Metaprophecy, 537–38. 8 GRUBER, Human and Divine, 88–102. On Gruber’s view, it is the unanimous teaching of scripture “that divine wisdom is superior while human wisdom is worthless. It is contrary to this idea found throughout the Hebrew Bible that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar rely upon human wisdom derived from experience and education” (99). He goes so far as to claim that Job’s denial of strict retribution and embrace of the vision represents true bibli3

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reflect a broader theological and epistemological conflict “between a position that relies on conventional wisdom and a position based on personal experience and in particular on renewable wisdom by way of revelation.”9 On his reading, Job not only shares the vision’s pessimistic view of humanity’s relation to God, but treasures his reception of it, defending its conclusions against the rebuttals of his friends and referring to it with “respect and pride” (pointing especially to 6:10).10 Ginsberg adopts a similar approach, though with different nuances.11 Smith thinks that in challenging “retribution theology” the vision “confirms Job’s worst fear,” but he concludes that God also uses it to reveal to Job that injustice is partially explained by human and angelic failure to carry out God’s will.12 Such contrasts between “human” and “divine” knowledge all impose a false dichotomy on the text, no matter in which direction they are applied. On the one side, Job certainly does not avoid “theological presupposition,” even if he does reject the traditional link between behavior and fate. But neither can the friends’ views be tied simply to “traditional wisdom,” seen as a purely human construct. To be sure, Job is willing to question traditional beliefs on the basis of his own bodily experience, while the friends are not, but the roles that various forms of revelation play in all of their speeches are much more complex than this implies. Even apart from the vision, Job constantly speaks of his own feeling of pursuit and persecution by God himself. Most of his corporeal imagery is tied to this, and it forms the basis even for his more universalizing accusations of injustice.13 Job rejects “theological” presuppositions on the basis of his own “theological” experience. This is all the clearer when we see how the vision itself stands at the heart of his complaint, providing the link between the experience of suffering itself, and his conviction that it is a sign of divine aggression. cal theology, while his friends’ reliance on human and “Gentile” wisdom is condemned across the Hebrew Bible. 9 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 246, my translation; original Hebrew: ‫אזי הופך הוויכוח בין הרעים‬

‫ואיוב להתנגשות בין עמדה המסתמכת על החכמה המקובלת ובין עמדה הנשענת על הניסיון האישי‬ ‫ובמיוחד על החכמה המתחדשת ביד ההתגלות‬. Cf. 247; idem, Skin, 63–77. 10 Unlike Eliphaz, “Job, however, refers to revelation from one of the angels with respect and pride” (GREENSTEIN, Extent, 248, my translation; ‫ מתייחס‬,‫ לעומת זאת‬,‫איוב‬ ‫ ;להתגלות מאת אחד מהמלאכים בכבוד ובגאווה‬see also idem, Skin, 67). 11 Epistemologically, GINSBERG, Patient, 95–97, also emphasizes a contrast between personal experience and traditional revelation in 15:17–18. Theologically, he stresses the way both the vision and Job emphasize the unfairness of God’s judgment: Neither denies that humanity is sinful, but rather accuse God of lacking forbearance and generosity towards human beings’ (minor) sins (102–111). 12 SMITH, Vision, 463. 13 Cf. 3:20–26; 6:4, 8–13; 7:11–21; 9:11–31; 10:8–17; 13:13–19; 16:6–18; 19:7–12; 21:4–7; 23:1–17; 29:2–6; 30:16–31; 31:35–37; 42:5.

Introduction

229

As for the friends, Harding’s dichotomy also over-simplifies the nature of the dispute, but he is correct that they are at times set in a position comparable to that of Israel’s prophets, and criticized on that basis. Further, we will see that the very “traditional wisdom” they appeal to often parallels – and perhaps even alludes to – a wide range of biblical texts, from the Pentateuch to the Psalms, Proverbs to the Prophets. The extent to which Job’s rejection of their position can be read as a challenge to the prophetic tradition as a whole is certainly debatable, but Harding is correct that the friends are not just representatives of “human wisdom,” as Gruber claims. They reflect at various points the authoritative traditions of Israel. That they consider the tradition itself to be revelatory may be implied by their repeated appeals to primordial times (8:8–10; 15:17–19; 20:4), but Eliphaz especially goes further, explicitly linking his teaching God’s “words” and “instruction” (22:22; cf. 15:11). Even in its reconstructed original form, Job’s dialogue with the friends cannot be reduced to a simple contrast between human and divine wisdom (in whichever direction), but reflects a complex dispute over the reliability of various sources of knowledge of God. One of the few to recognize this is Caesar, who despite denying the attribution of the vision to Job, emphasizes that the friends are not unified in their reactions to it, nor in their underlying epistemologies. In particular, he contrasts Eliphaz’s appeals to what he has personally “seen” (4:8; 5:3; 15:17, as well as the vision), with Bildad’s deliberate contrast between “our days” and the more secure knowledge of the ancestors (8:8–10).14 As Caesar puts it: “Bildad’s subtle criticism puts the sages before the self and the supernatural.”15 On that basis, he describes Bildad’s reuse of the vision in ch. 25 as “a late and total acquiescence” to Eliphaz’s vision.16 Holbert also notes a tension between Eliphaz’s vision and Zophar’s critical use of its language in ch. 20, concluding that alongside Job, “Eliphaz too is mocked by Zophar.”17 Such conclusions must be modified if the vision was originally attributed to Job, but even in the original dialogue Bildad and Zophar express distinct stances 14

CAESAR, New Thesis, 436–442. GREENSTEIN, Skin, 72–75, also emphasizes that Eliphaz is the only friend to appeal to his own experience, but he argues that even this is always followed by a reaffirmation of traditional wisdom. Even though Greenstein himself notes parallels to Eliphaz’s arguments in other biblical texts (68), he only attributes reliance on “revelation” to Job. The friends’ arguments are repeatedly described as “traditional wisdom,” even when the source is acknowledged to be biblical (e.g. 68, 70, 71, 72). Greenstein does not clarify this usage, which may reflect nothing more than a conclusion that the texts now considered “biblical” may not yet have been perceived as canonical, but it is questionable whether “tradition” can be contrasted with “revelation” at any plausible date for the composition of Job. This is especially true if the friends do indeed echo prophetic and Pentateuchal texts, and not just psalms and proverbs. 15 CAESAR, New Thesis, 441. 16 CAESAR, New Thesis, 442. 17 HOLBERT, Skies, 174, cf. 171–79.

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toward the sources of their knowledge than Eliphaz does. Only he explicitly appeals to what he has himself “seen,” and to God’s own words (e.g. 15:11; 22:22). This contrast inherent to the original dialogue is only deepened by the later reattribution of the vision itself to Eliphaz. In this chapter, therefore, we will reconsider both the role of the vision, and the attitudes towards revelation more generally, within the dialogue between Job and his friends. We will see that Job does indeed infer from the vision that the traditional link between sin and suffering has collapsed, but far from being proud of this knowledge, he finds it terrifying. Meanwhile, though Job’s friends repudiate this vision and the conclusions Job draws from it, they neither reject revelation in general nor are they unified in their approach to it. Eliphaz’s appeals to ancestral wisdom are themselves most plausibly read as appeals to a more reliable source of divine knowledge, and draw on a range of biblical traditions. Bildad appears to view the tradition similarly, but denies both Job’s and Eliphaz’s reliance on individual experience, making his final concession to the vision – dismissive though it may be – all the more surprising. For his part, Zophar also appeals to ancient knowledge, but he wishes that God would speak, and never concedes anything to the vision. In short, neither Job nor the friends can be reduced to flat-footed defenders of either revelation or human knowledge. Not only do the vision and revelation in general play more ambivalent roles in Job’s own speeches than is generally seen, but the friends own reliance on traditional wisdom lies closer to the mainstream of biblical theology than is commonly admitted, and their apparent repudiation by Job and the book as a whole represents a significant challenge to that tradition.

A. The Vision and Job’s Dispute with God A. The Vision and Job’s Dispute with God

In Chapter One we have seen that the vision skillfully interweaves imagery of prophetic revelation with allusions to divine deception and judgment. The message in 4:17–21 is ambiguous, but challenges two of the friends’ deeply held assumptions: that there is a clear dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked, and that only the wicked ever perish. In Chapter Two, it was shown that the vision’s language and style of first-person speech are characteristic of Job, and that each of his speeches of the first speech cycle not only echoes the visionary’s self-description but also builds on the vision’s conclusions. In Chapter Three, it was concluded that the vision most likely originally appeared at the end of Job’s complaint in ch. 3, not in the middle of Eliphaz’s response in ch. 4, and that Job’s apparent dismissals of the vision and its conclusions in chs. 26 and 27 are also most likely secondary additions to his speeches. It is time now to draw this material together and reconsider the meaning of 4:12–21 in relation to Job’s point of view, and to set it in the

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231

larger context of his speeches as a whole. We will see that the vision does play a foundational role in Job’s argumentation, but that far from treasuring it as God’s answer to his plight, he remains deeply troubled both by its content and by his very reception of it. I. Reading the Vision with Job’s Eyes Dell has argued that the Joban dialogues as a whole are marked by the frequent “parody” of generic forms found elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible.18 For instance, Job’s parody of Ps 8:5[4] in 7:17–18 turns the psalmist’s awe at God’s attention into a complaint of God’s scrutiny.19 Job parodies other hymnic forms in 9:5–10 and 12:13–25,20 and misuses a typical lament form in 3:11–26, turning what would normally be a call for rescue into a wish for death.21 As Dell recognizes, however, nearly all of the examples of such a “misuse of forms” appear in Job’s own speeches, not those of the friends.22 In fact, of the few examples she finds in the friends’ speeches, only the vision itself clearly reflects such an intent, which we can now see is simply another example of Job’s own use of this method.23 Dell herself only briefly address18

DELL, Sceptical Literature, 109–157, et passim. It is not necessary to accept that the genre of the whole book is “parody” to recognize the appearance of a number of misused forms within the dialogues. 19 DELL, Sceptical Literature, 126–27; KYNES, My Psalm, 63–79. A related misuse might also be seen in 14:1–12 (DELL, Sceptical Literature, 129). 20 Cf. DELL, Sceptical Literature, 127, 129. Besides Job 26:5–14, which responds to this with a more traditional use of the form, other examples appear in, e.g., Ps 104; 107; Amos 5:8–9. Dell claims that Job 26:5–14 is also a parody, on the grounds that “God’s power in creation is seen as frightening whereas usually in the psalms and in the prophets it is to be praised” (132). But references to fear are found in other hymns (e.g. Ps 33:8; 81:16[15]; 104:29), as are theophanic descriptions of the “shaking” of the earth or the heavens (e.g. Ps 68:8–9[7–8]; 104:7; 114:3–8). It is by no means clear, therefore, that 26:5, 11 constitutes a “parody” of the hymnic form; it is better to see these allusions to fear and trembling in the netherworld and the heavens as a response to Job’s much more personal accounts of his dread in ch. 9 and elsewhere. 21 DELL, Sceptical Literature, 125–26, following FOHRER, Hiob, 113. Examples of the proper use of the form are seen in Ps 79:5–13; Gen 25:22. Job misuses a similar form in 6:8–10 (cf. Ps 55:7–9[6–8]). 22 DELL, Sceptical Literature, 136. The examples she discusses are Job 3:11–26; 6:8–10; 7:7–8, 15, 11–20; 9:5–10, 25–28; 10:2–12, 13–17, 18–19; 12:7–12, 13–25; 13:20–22; 14:1–12, 13, 18–22; 16:7–14; 19:22; 21:7–13, 17–18, 23–26, 32–33; 23:8–9; 26:5–14; 29:7–17, 21–25; 30:25–26; 31:35–37; 38:4–5; 40:2, 8, 9–14 (cf. 126–136). Apart from the handful of examples in the divine speeches, all of the others she lists are in Job’s speeches, not those of his friends, which she suggests “may well have been deliberate on the part of the author. It is Job who is saying unorthodox things as regards content: why not also in form?” (136). 23 The “only possible exceptions” she finds are 5:3–7, 22:15–16, and 4:12–21 itself (DELL, Sceptical Literature, 136, cf. 136–38). She herself notes that the example in 22:15–

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es the vision’s surprising form, dismissing it as a mere reuse of “a prophetic or even apocalyptic vision whilst the content is more typical wisdom teaching,”24 but there is much more to the abuse of form here than a mere reframing of traditional wisdom. It was noted in Chapter One that 4:12–21 is broadly structured according to the “prophetic vision report” genre reconstructed by Behrens, paralleling its typical two-part form with a first-person visual experience, followed by an oral component that often begins with a question.25 It was further noted that despite this structural parallel, Job omits all of the typical verbal markers of the genre except ‫( שׁמע‬4:16). Moreover, while 4:12–16 employs a number of terms and expressions that recall well-known prophetic tropes, each of these is twisted into something much more troubling. Though Job begins with “a word to me” that “my ear received,” here the word is “stolen” and only a “whisper” received. Though he experiences “visions of the night,” they bring him only “troubling thoughts” and bone-shaking “dread.” While a “spirit” passes before his face, it makes his hair bristle and remains unrecognizable. Together, these twists on the usual expectations of a prophetic vision not only leave its revelatory import ambiguous, but may even allude to traditions of divine deception such as those reflected in 1 Kgs 22 and Jer 20. Similarly, the message that the “spirit” brings in 4:17–19b is no “typical wisdom teaching,”26 but a highly subversive challenge to the very possibility of human (or even angelic) righteousness before or compared to God. Meanwhile the conclusion drawn in 4:19c–21 is a forthright denial of the traditional dichotomy between the fates of the righteous and the wicked, emphasizing that anyone can suddenly and violently perish. Together, the vision and its message therefore not only parody the prophetic vision report genre, but do so in service of a profoundly pessimistic account of divine-human relations, 16 is distinctive for setting a probable wisdom saying in question form, but that it lacks the skeptical edge seen in Job’s misuse of forms (137; and in any case, GORDIS, Book of God, 177–79, notes that appeals to proverbial wisdom are commonly expressed in question form; e.g. cf. 8:11). Dell appears less sure what to make of the example in 5:3–7 (cf. 136), but in fact the passage is only rendered unusual by the conclusion in 5:6–7, which could be a concession to the vision. Otherwise, 5:2–5 is a very traditional curse on the fool or the apostate (see Chapter Two, Section B.I and Chapter Three, Section A.III above). Dell notes that some examples identified by Fohrer in the friends’ speeches are better seen as adaptations of forms than as misuse of them, e.g. 11:7–19 (cf. DELL, Sceptical Literature, 128, contra FOHRER, Hiob, 223–24). 24 DELL, Sceptical Literature, 136, cf. 137. Since she did not consider the possibility that the vision should be attributed to Job, she was predisposed to dismiss its significance as an exception to the rule, but in fact it offers as clear an example as is to be found anywhere in Job’s speeches. 25 BEHRENS, Visionsschilderungen, 32–60, 372–78. 26 Contra DELL, Sceptical Literature, 136; similarly, WHEDBEE, Comic Vision, 233; ALBERTZ, Sage, 251–52; HABEL, Job, 128.

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which implies that no matter what human beings do, their destruction is already assured. That such abuse of convention is much closer to Job’s perspective than the friends’ confirms the many other indications we have seen that the vision was originally Job’s, but it also implies a critical attitude toward the vision itself on Job’s part. Job may be the visionary, but it should not be assumed that even he embraces its message without reservation. Though the style of expression is certifiably Job’s, the message in 4:17–21 is introduced as the word of the “spirit,” and its ambiguity should not be too quickly resolved. Tur-Sinai’s first German commentary attempts to read the vision as a direct confirmation of Job’s accusations of divine injustice, but this is not unequivocal.27 The first half may imply the condemnation of the recipient – its language is double-sided enough to leave doubt – but insofar as 4:12–16 represents the visionary’s self-description, its indications of condemnation may already reflect Job’s own interpretation of the event. That the vision is terrifying and confusing describes the visionary’s reaction; it is no reliable guide to the vision’s (divine) intent. The anonymous and unrecognizable nature of the experience is also ambivalent, and even the description of the word as “stolen” (or deceptive) is interpretive – is it intended to be deceptive, or only perceived to be by Job? What these details demonstrate is not that God truly has condemned Job through this vision, but that Job believes God has done so, as he will make explicit in subsequent speeches. As for the message of the vision, interpretation greatly depends on how much of 4:17–21 should actually be attributed to the “spirit.” It has long been debated whether 4:18–21 are part of the vision’s message proper, or reflect instead the visionary’s own conclusions from it.28 As suggested in Chapter One, the more likely place to suspect a change of speaker is at 4:19c, and this is all the more probable if the vision was originally attributed to Job rather than Eliphaz.29 Where 4:17–19b merely asks whether mortals can be righteous before or compared to God, such that Job’s later speeches offer only one potential answer to that question, the affirmation of indiscriminate destruction in 4:19c–21 is unambiguously emphasized in Job’s later speeches.30 That a break is intended between 4:19b and 4:19c is also supported by the friends’ quotations of and allusions to the vision. Though they respond to 4:19c–21 in 4:7–11, 5:20–21, 20:7 and elsewhere, the extended paraphrases of the vision’s message in 15:14–16 and 25:4–6 both end with approximate parallels to 4:19b. Neither quotes or paraphrases the account of sudden destruction in 4:19c–21 as part of the vision, even though each of the friends 27

TORCZYNER, Hiob, 13; but later TUR-SINAI, Job, 88–90, backs away from this a bit. See Chapter One, Section B.II. 29 Cf. TUR-SINAI, Job, 84, 88. 30 E.g. 9:22; 12:13–25; 14:7–22. 28

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elsewhere denies that the innocent suffer such a fate. This implies that the latter verses were not considered part of the vision itself, but rather a reflection of Job’s interpretation of it. Finally, while Eliphaz is highly unlikely to have interpreted the vision along the lines of 4:19c–21, given that he flatly contradicts this conclusion in the surrounding passages, it is entirely possible to read this as Job’s interpretation of the ambiguous message in 4:17–19b, as it anticipates his own arguments in chs. 7, 9, 14 and elsewhere. Since the text lacks any explicit indication of a change of speaker the case must be left open, but if 4:19c–21 is Job’s own interpretation, that has a number of significant consequences. First, it means that the account of indiscriminate destruction is not actually admitted by the divine messenger, which allows a wider range of possible interpretations of 4:17–19b. Like Job’s conclusion that his own condemnation is unjust, so his conclusion that human beings “die, and not in wisdom,” would be an inference from the vision and his own experience, not the point of the vision itself. In that case, Job’s interpretation is no less idiosyncratic than Bildad’s in chs. 25–26*. Both read into the vision ideas that are not explicit. This is clearest in the way they each respond to the suggestion that God mistrusts his own servants in 4:18. Bildad reduces this to a simple contrast between God’s brightness and the comparative dimness of the heavenly bodies (25:5). Job does the opposite in 9:13, replacing God’s mistrust with unrestrained “anger,” and applying it not to God’s servants, but to “the helpers of Rahab.” Both Job and Bildad follow this by asking “how much less” a mortal, just as in 4:19 (cf. 9:14; 25:6), but while all three infer from this that humanity is comparatively lowly, the respnoses to that lowliness could not be less alike: for Bildad it is awe at God’s greatness, for Job it is horror at God’s inescapability. These diametrically opposed interpretations confirm what was emphasized in Chapter One, that 4:17–19 is deeply ambiguous. By leaving implicit the links between human righteousness, God’s attitude toward his servants, and human lowliness, multiple interpretations are open, with Job’s and Bildad’s representing only two of the range conflicting possibilities. In that context, Köhlmoos’ suggestion is intriguing: that beneath the visionary’s own interpretation (which she takes to be Eliphaz’s), the vision itself can be read as God’s own interjection into the dialogue, raising new questions that Job and his friends will explore in various ways.31 Especially if 4:19c–21 is indeed the beginning of Job’s own interpretation, then the questions raised in 4:17–19b about the possibility of human righteousness need not be read in the antagonistic manner that Job perceives. For instance, though cautions have been raised against Beuken’s attempt to reconcile the vision to Eliphaz’s position, he is nevertheless correct that on its own, 4:17–19b can be read as a simple denial that any level of creaturely 31

KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 196–97.

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235

righteousness and purity can put a person on a level with God: “cultic purity and ethical behavior are necessary for human existence in the world, but they do not offer a basis upon which one can postulate oneself over and against God.”32 Such a reading does nothing to minimize the contradiction between 4:17–21 as a whole and Eliphaz’s position,33 but as I will suggest in the next chapter, it could allow a closer coordination with the divine speeches than has generally been perceived. Also possible is Smith’s suggestion that 4:18 could imply that “A partial explanation of injustice on the earth comes from the fact that God has angels who err and do not carry out their responsibility as God would desire (possibly a hint at the Satan of the prologue).”34 This connection is also not explicit, but the fact that God’s servants and messengers are not normally portrayed in such a negative light in the Hebrew Bible by no means rules out such an interpretive possibility, especially in light of Job’s prologue.35 In the end, any of these readings are possible, but all of them are speculative inferences that go beyond what 4:17–19 actually says. The text is and remains ambiguous.36 Only some of this ambiguity is resolved in 4:19c–21. Though this uncompromising account of sudden destruction shifts the interpretation of the vision firmly in the direction of Job’s subsequent speeches, it does not yet make explicit the connections he will later draw out. It does not actually state that this destruction is unjust – though mortals in general are destroyed, it is at least theoretically possible that this is because all are indeed wicked. Further, unless 4:19c should be emended to read “crushed before their maker,”37 the passage does not even make explicit that God is the cause of human destruction. It could simply mean that God allows mortals to perish, by whatever means. Job’s inferences of divine antagonism are also not explicit nor even obviously implicit in 4:19–21. All that is clear is that destruction is a threat to anyone, and that it can come suddenly, without warning or escape. This is the basis for Job’s subsequent argument, but it does not yet draw the radical conclusions that he will infer from it. Finally, if 4:19c–21 does represent Job’s own conclusion from the vision, that means that Job takes the last word in this passage. This would represent the crowning subversion of the prophetic vision report genre, for as Behrens notes, one of the clearest features of the form is that God or his messenger 32

BEUKEN, Eliphaz, 298, cf. 296–300. Both the challenge to human standing before God in 4:17–19b and the emphasis on sudden destruction in 4:19c–21 represents direct challenges to the friends’ viewpoint, whether attributed to the “spirit” or the visionary. 34 SMITH, Vision, 463. COTTER, Job 4–5, 191 n. 74, also sees a potential allusion to the Satan. 35 Contra PINKER, Job 4,18, 500–519. 36 Cf. HARDING, Spirit, esp. 152–53, 163–64. 37 So TUR-SINAI, Job, 86; SEOW, Job, 406–7 33

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always has the last word.38 Even when the verbal portion of the vision is a dialogue with the prophet, it always ends with the divine word. If Job in fact concludes with his own word, this would not only be a formal inversion of the genre, but also a fitting anticipation of one of the hallmarks of his whole approach: his insistent demand that God hear and acknowledge his voice. This brings us to what might seem to be the most significant objection to the attribution of the vision to Job: If Job has indeed already received a vision from God at the very beginning of the book, why does he spend the rest of the dialogue demanding an answer from God?39 Far from being a problem for my reading, however, the two fit hand and glove. It is precisely because Job believes that he has already heard his pronouncement of “guilty” in the form of the vision that he is driven so strongly to present his own side of the case. This is especially clear from his responses to the vision in chs. 7 and 9. II. The Vision as the Motivation for Job’s Complaint It was suggested in Chapter Three that what prompts Job’s uniquely vitriolic response to his suffering is not its extent, but instead his conviction that it was no accident. The overall shape of his complaint in Job 3 suggests this, beginning with a curse on the day of his birth (3:3–11) and a lengthy meditation on the peace of death (3:12–19). The indirect account of God fencing him in (3:23) and his references to dread and turmoil (3:24–26) hint at the reason for this extreme reaction, but do not make it explicit. If the vision originally appeared at the end of this speech, however, it would have clarified why Job seeks death rather than rescue: He believes that he has already heard his condemnation from God’s own messenger. The vision, therefore, is not the answer to Job’s complaint; it is the trigger for it, and at several points in his subsequent speeches he directly ties his meditations on its message to his desire to speak for himself. First, in 7:11–21, Job explicitly complains that God terrifies him with visions (7:13–14), and demands to know why God treats him like an adversary (7:12). He draws here for the first time his conclusion that God’s gaze is inescapable and his standard unattainable (7:17–21). Therefore, he again concludes that he would prefer death (7:15–16), and requests that if God will not “pardon my injustice,” will he at least leave Job in peace for the brief moments he has left (7:19–21). All of this is built on the vision, but note how he introduces it: “I also will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit [‫ ;]רוחי‬I will complain in the bitterness of my soul” (7:11). Job’s terrifying visions and the inescapable judgment he infers from them are the very reason for his complaint. Against the condemnation inferred from 38 BEHRENS, Visionschilerungen, 60, “Immer endet dieser Redeteil im Munde Jahwehs oder seines Boten, nie hat der Prophet das letzte Wort.” 39 An objection raised by GORDIS, Job, 519.

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the spirit’s coming, Job will give voice to his own “spirit.” In the face of God’s surveillance, Job will speak for himself, asking the questions that the vision does not answer: “Why have you made me your target? Why have I become a burden to myself? Why do you not pardon my transgression and pass over my iniquity?” (7:20b–21a, emphasis added). If Job is innocent, at least of any gross wickedness, why has God turned against him? The same connection is also clear in ch. 9, where Job begins directly with his quotation of 4:17 in 9:2, but then reframes it in legal terms in 9:3: “Truly I know that this is so; how then can a mortal be righteous with God [‫ ?]עם־אל‬If he wishes to contend with him [‫]לריב עמו‬, he will not [or cannot] answer him once in a thousand.”40 This use of the preposition ‫ עם‬in 9:2, where 4:17 used ‫מן‬, could imply nothing more than an indistinct relation, “with,” but a connotation of legal opposition is suggested by the combination with ‫ ריב‬in 9:3.41 A ‫ ריב‬is a trial or confrontation, whether formal or informal, and features prominently in a number of prophetic denunciations of Israel.42 Job turns it against God, though he admits that such a move is unlikely to succeed. Because God’s power is irresistible, no one can stand against him (9:4–14, 19), and even if innocent, Job cannot hope for a fair hearing (9:15–16, 20–21, 28–35), for God destroys without cause (9:17, 22–24). As in ch. 7, therefore, the quotation of the vision in 9:2 is again tied to Job’s wish for the chance to present his own case before God, which drives the whole speech that this introduces. The apparent hopelessness of Job’s desire for a fair hearing is emphasized in 9:32–35, which assumes a similar contrast between God and humanity to that affirmed in 4:17–19, “For he is not a man like me, that I could answer him, that we could come to trial together” (9:32; cf. 9:14). The following verses in 9:34–35 then further link this to God’s “terror,” much as in the vision itself: “If he would remove his rod from me, and his terror [‫ ]אמתו‬not overwhelm [‫בעת‬, Pi] me, I would speak and not fear [‫ ]ירא‬him, but it is not

40 The legal focus of the chapter is emphasized by, e.g., HABEL, Job, 185, 189. On the legal metaphor in the book as a whole, cf. esp. HOFFMAN, Trial, 21–31; ROBERTS, Summons, 159–165; MAGDALENE, Scales, passim; GREENSTEIN, Forensic Understanding, 241– 247, cf. 248–259. On the ambiguous import of 9:2–4, especially regarding whether “a mortal” or “God” is the subject in 9:3, cf. FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 225–26. He takes this as an example of Job’s veiled irony. 41 Job’s use of ‫ עם‬seems to chart a middle course between the two possible interpretations of ‫ מן‬in 4:17, establishing that a relation is in view, not simply a comparison, but leaving ambiguous whether this means “with God” or “against God” (FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 260–61; WEISS, Bible from Within, 430; KÖHLMOOS, Auge Gottes, 206–7 n.5). On the use of ‫ עם‬in an indictment, cf. e.g. Mic 6:2; Ps 94:16 and (I would argue) Job 16:21. If such a usage is intended in 9:2, it would imply that God is not the judge, but rather the litigant. 42 Cf. e.g. LIMBURG, Prophetic Lawsuit, 291–306; BANDY, Prophetic Lawsuit, 24–58; but contrast DE ROCHE, Yahweh’s rîb, 563–574; DANIELS, Prophetic Lawsuit, 339–360.

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so; I am alone with myself.”43 At the end of a speech that builds on the vision’s imagery to accuse God of antagonism and summary condemnation, this can be read as a final repudiation of the “dread” that attended the vision. This is supported by Job’s use in 7:14 of the same rare verb as 9:34 to complain that, “you terrify [‫בעת‬, Pi] me with visions.”44 Thus when Job demands the removal of such fear and threat of punishment (“his rod”),45 he implies that the vision’s “dread” and condemnation are themselves a problem to be overcome, rather than as a solution to his plight.46 Far from reflecting the kind of direct encounter than Job seeks, the vision drives his plea for one.47 Reading the vision as Job’s, therefore, does not mean assuming that it perfectly lines up with his own perspective. Though the vision forms the basis for much of what Job has to say, it offers only very ambiguous support for his conclusions. The allusions to divine deception and judgment in 4:12–16 reflect Job’s reaction to the vision first and foremost, and cannot be taken as a reliable guide to the vision’s actual intent, while the message in 4:17–19b is much more open-ended than Job implies. Especially if the account of sudden destruction in 4:19c–21 already represents Job’s interpretation rather than the vision’s own, his conclusion that God disregards human righteousness and destroys indiscriminately is only one possible inference from the vision, and not even necessarily the most obvious one. Nevertheless, this is what Job infers from the vision, and he is by no means comfortable with that conclusion. Therefore while Job alludes to the vision at numerous points in his subsequent speeches, we will now see that his concern is not just to build on its conclusions, but also to challenge the condemnation that he believes it embodies.

43 The expression in 9:35b is problematic and variously interpreted (‫)כי לא־כן אנכי עמדי‬. With HABEL, Job, 183, and SEOW, Job, 572, I take this as an elliptical inversion of 9:2 (‫)אמנם ידעתי כי־כן ומה־יצדק אנושׁ עם־אל‬, framing the speech with an emphasis on the impossibility of Job’s case against God. 44 The verb ‫ בעת‬only appears 16 times in the Hebrew Bible, with 2 further occurrences of the noun ‫בעתה‬. Five of these appear on Job’s lips (3:5; 7:14; 9:34; 13:11, 21). Job’s companions respond in 15:24 (Eliphaz); 18:11 (Bildad); 33:7 (Elihu). 45 As CLINES, Job, 1.243, notes, “God’s rod is the instrument of his anger which engenders fear (cf. 21:9; Lam 3:1; Isa 10:5).” 46 Job 13:21 nearly exactly repeats 9:34, except that it is addressed to God in the second person, instead of speaking of him in the third person: ‫יסר מעלי שׁבטו ואמתו אל־תבעתני‬ (9:34), ‫( כפך מעלי הרחק ואמתך אל־תבעתני‬13:21). 47 HABEL, Job, 348, makes a similar point in relation to Job 23, “Job wants to reach God and meet him face to face; he will not be satisfied with a bizarre night vision like that of Eliphaz.” Similarly, in discussing 33:15 CLINES, Job, 2.731, affirms that “Auditions in dreams are not the kind of communication Job has been seeking…, but some kind of public announcement of his innocence, some demonstrable restoration of his good name” (following ANDERSEN, Job, 249).

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III. Job’s Responses to the Vision Reconsidered Among those who recognize the vision’s probable original attribution to Job, his troubled perspective on it has not generally been emphasized. According to Greenstein, Job “takes pride in the fact that he ‘has not suppressed the words of the holy being [that is, the spirit]’ (6:10).”48 Moreover, Job’s reception and use of the vision throughout the dialogues turn “the argument between Job and his companions from a contest between experience and wisdom into a confrontation between revelation and traditional knowledge.”49 Gruber goes further, claiming that “one of the central messages of the book of Job from beginning to end is that Job’s point of view, which, in the end, is supported by God in Job 42, is the traditional and authentic Torah of God and Israel, while the rantings of Job’s three friends represent human wisdom or Gentile wisdom.”50 Like Greenstein, Gruber also appeals to 6:10 for support, translating it, “‘I have not concealed the words of the divine being’, which means, ‘I have revealed to you the words of the angel’.”51 Gruber affirms that “Job’s argument [is] that the common guilt of both mortals and celestial beings, including the angels and personified/deified sky and stars, in no way accounts for Job’s underserved suffering.”52 He even views “the dream vision as a defense of Job rather than an attempt to suggest, God forbid, that he in his guilt brought deserved suffering upon himself and his children.”53 As Greenstein recognizes, however, Job’s interpretation of the vision has a much sharper edge than this implies. Job accepts from the vision that God “does not distinguish between the righteous and the wicked (9:22)”54 and goes further, suggesting that God “even favors the wicked (9:23–24, 10:3b)… [and] is willing to incriminate the pure person, to vilify and convict him without any basis (9:28–31).”55 He concludes that Job is not surprised by God’s antagonism and injustice because he already knows from the vision that “humanity appears deficient in the eyes of its creator.”56 This is a much more accurate assessment of the role of the vision in Job’s speeches than Gruber’s. Job sees in the vision no exoneration or “defense,” but a sign of God’s antagonism. Yet even Greenstein’s own reading underestimates the 48

GREENSTEIN, Skin, 67, editorial additions original to GREENSTEIN. Cf. idem, Extent, 248; similarly, GINSBERG, Patient, 103. 49 GREENSTEIN, Inspiration, 107. 50 GRUBER, Human and Divine, 92. 51 GRUBER, Human and Divine, 93. 52 GRUBER, Liturgy, 87; cf. idem, Human and Divine, 93–94. 53 GRUBER, Human and Divine, 94. 54 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 249; original Hebrew: (22 ‫הוא אינו מבחין בין צדיק לרשע )ט‬. 55 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 249; original Hebrew: ‫ י‬,23–24 ‫ואף מיטיב דווקא עם הרשעים )שם‬ ‫ להשמיצו ולהרשיעו‬,‫ איוב אף מקצין את הטענה הזאת – האל מוכן להפליל את האדם הטהור‬.(‫ב‬3 (28–31 ‫ללא כל יסוד )ט‬. 56 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 251; original Hebrew: ‫הוא יודע כי האדם נראה חסר בעיני בוראו‬.

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troublesome role the vision plays in Job’s speeches. The claim that Job affirms the vision “with respect and pride” is especially problematic,57 overlooking both the indications of deception and condemnation in 4:12–16, and the way Job responds to these in his subsequent speeches. Job’s assertion in 6:10 is instructive. We have already seen that there are good reasons to suspect that this alludes to the vision, as Greenstein and Gruber suggest.58 The verb ‫ כחד‬typically refers to “concealing” something, not “denying” as it is commonly translated here, and the vision is the most plausible reference for these “words of the holy one.” But if this does allude to the vision, it certainly does not do so with “pride.” “I have not hidden” is no stirring affirmation of support – it says nothing about whether Job agrees with the vision, only that he has passed it along – and the tone throughout the surrounding passage is also critical, not proud. In fact, 6:8–13 seems to be a response to the vision, not a straightforward embrace of it. Job begins by expressing his “hope” (6:8) that God would go the whole way and “crush” (‫ )דכא‬him (6:9), repeating the term used in 4:19 of the fate of mortals in general.59 He then acknowledges his powerlessness before God (6:11–12), paralleling 4:19–21, but concludes on a subversively ironic note: “Truly my help [‫ ]עזרתי‬is not with me, and aid has been driven from me” (6:13). The reference to ‫ עזרתי‬could echo the frequent use of this expression in the psalms to refer to God’s defense of the suffering, and if the second colon is also a divine passive, then the whole line is an implicit rebuke of God for not only failing to help, but even driving all support from him.60 In that light, the affirmation in 6:10 sounds similarly ironic: “This is still my consolation, even while I recoil in pain without compassion: that I have not hidden the words of the Holy One.”61 If this refers to the vision, it probably claims credit for making it known (“I have not hidden”), but Job certainly does not treasure these “words” that have brought him nothing but unrelenting pain. His only “consolation” is nothing less than the proof of his condem57

GREENSTEIN, Extent, 248. See Chapter Two, Section C.I above. 59 HABEL, Job, 141, and SEOW, Job, 458, note that 6:8–13 also responds to 4:2–6 (note the use of ‫ תקוה‬in 4:6 and 6:8, and cf. the use of ‫ נחמה‬in 6:10 with 4:3–4), but they miss the way this uses the vision’s depiction of human frailty to reject Eliphaz’s advice. 60 SEOW, Job, 476, notes the ambiguity, and the ironic reversal of the common description of God as “my help” (‫ )עזרתי‬throughout the psalter (e.g. Ps 22:20[19]; 27:9; 35:2; 38:23[22]; 40:18[17]; 70:2[1]; cf. 63:8[7]; 94:17). Job uses the expression in 31:21 in a different context. 61 For this sense to 6:10b, cf. SEOW, Job, 451, 474; who translates “even while I recoil in pain unsparing.” JPS reads 6:10b similarly, but has an idiosyncratic reading of 6:10c: “Then this would be my consolation, As I writhed in unsparing pains: That I did not suppress my words against the Holy One.” It is not clear how they derive “my words against the Holy One” from ‫אמרי קדושׁ‬. 58

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nation. Small wonder that his only “hope” is that God crush him without pity – if only he would finally do so.62 The emphasis throughout the passage on God’s destructive action not only shifts attention away from the revelation itself, but probably also undermines Greenstein’s and Gruber’s claims that ‫ קדושׁ‬refers to an angel.63 Job’s concern is with God himself here, so it is more likely that he uses this term to refer to God – by far the most common usage across the Hebrew Bible – than that he suddenly brings in a third party.64 That is, Job’s concern here is not with some other intermediary through whom God speaks to him, but with his own status as divine messenger, a position he finds unbearable.65 Job returns to the theme in 6:26, where he complains that his friends treat “the words of the desperate” as ‫רוח‬. Smith takes this as further evidence that the vision is Job’s,66 but note that this describes how the friends treat Job’s words; it need not imply that his words are in fact ‫רוח‬. As noted in Chapter Two, this is probably a double-entendre, reflecting the friends’ rejection of the vision (the words of the “spirit,” ‫)רוח‬, as mere “wind” (‫)רוח‬, attributing it to Job rather than a divine origin (cf. 8:2; 15:2 and probably 20:3). As for how Job describes himself, it is not as a prophet but as “the desperate” or “a 62 Without recognizing an allusion to the vision, many commentators acknowledge that 6:10 is bitterly ironic or “satirical” (e.g. HABEL, Job, 147). 63 GREENSTEIN, Skin, 67 n. 11, suggests that ‫ קדושׁ‬does not refer to God, but to the “spirit” of 4:15, on the grounds that the only other two occurrences of ‫ קדשׁים‬in Job are contrasted with the high God: In 15:15 (Qere) they are the ones God does not trust, and in 5:1 they are apparently the ones Job is asked to call upon instead of God (cf. 5:8). P. D. MILLER, Divine Warrior, 66–144, argues that a number of texts across the Hebrew Bible depict “the holy ones” as members of YHWH’s court (as well as his army; e.g. Ps 89:6–8 [5–7]; Zech 14:5; Prov 30:3). Most conclude that “the holy ones” in Job 5:1 refers to the same group as “his servants” and “his angels” (e.g. POPE, Job, 41–42, who notes also Dan 4:10, 14, 20; 8:13; cf. Hos 12:1[11:12]; similarly J. GRAY, Job 156, who notes Sir 42:17). 64 When used in as a substantive, ‫ קדושׁ‬is generally an epithet for God himself, not for his servants (cf. 1 Sam 2:2; 2 Kgs 19:22 Ps 71:22; 78:41; 89:19[18]; Prov 9:10; Isa 1:4; 5:19, 24; 10:20; 12:6; 17:7; 29:19, 23; 30:11, 12, 15; 31:1; 37:23; 40:25; 41:14, 16, 20; 43:3, 14, 15; 45:11; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7; 54:5; 55:5; 60:9, 14; Jer 50:29; 51:5; Ezek 39:7; Hos 11:9; 12:1[11:12; plural!]; Hab 1:12; 3:3; but cf. Dan 8:13). It is treated as such in Job 6:10 by most commentators (e.g. POPE, Job, 52; HABEL, Job, 147; J. GRAY, Job, 172–73, though the latter considers this a gloss). In any case, even if Greenstein and Gruber were correct that ‫ קדושׁ‬refers to the “spirit,” God is still assumed to stand behind the message it brings, and even if 6:10 refers to God directly, that does not prove that the “spirit” in 4:15 was in fact God himself. 65 This, then, is another parallel to Jer 20. On the possibility that the canonical portrayal of Jeremiah was an inspiration to the Joban poet, cf. GREENSTEIN, Inspiration, 98–110, esp. 105–7. This is supported by 7:13–14, where Job also omits the intermediary and refers to God (directly) sending him terrifying visions. 66 SMITH, Vision, 456, “in vi 26 Job claims that his words, the saying of the one in despair, belong to the Spirit.”

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despairing man” (‫ ;נאשׁ‬6:26).67 Once again, Job’s allusion to his status as recipient of the vision leads him to despair, not pride. Nor is it difficult to imagine why: Suffering is fearful enough if one can hope for salvation, but if Job believes that God has already responded with a word of condemnation, what more can he hope for, except a swift death? Similarly, it was already noted that 7:14 takes up from 4:13 the term ‫חזינות‬, “visions,” and affirms that they are sent by God, but the context of this allusion is equally important. Here Job complains that even when he tries to sleep God will not leave him alone: “When I say, ‘My couch will comfort me, my bed will ease my complaint,’ then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions [‫( ”]מחזינות‬7:13–14). This emphasis on fear reflects the vision (4:14), but here it is even more prominent, leading to a forthright death-wish: “so that I would prefer strangling, death more than my bones” (7:15). Job thus makes explicit what was already implied by the original position of 4:12–21 at the end of ch. 3: Such visions come from God, but their result is not enlightenment – only terror and despair.68 Job then returns to the content of the vision with his famous reversal of Ps 8 (7:17–21). The question, “What is a mortal, that you make so much of him, that you set your heart on him?” (7:17) is raised to accuse God of overzealous attention to the faults of mortals, implying that human beings are not considered righteous before God because God is unrelenting and merciless in his approach to human weakness, refusing to pardon their transgressions (7:18– 21).69 Thus, while 7:14 certainly does imply that the vision came from God to Job himself, and Job does build on its message to make his argument, this is no defense of the vision – it is a despairing accusation of God, as the contrast in 7:11 implies. Thus, Job seems to build on the most extreme interpretation of the vision noted above, implying that mortals “perish forever” because God has turned against his own creation. Job does not deny that he or any other human sins, but he insists that the problem is not that sin, but God’s own stubborn refusal to overlook such failings, no matter how minor. If the overall impression Job gives in chs. 6–7 is that his only remaining wish is death, by ch. 9 he latches onto a new hope, though just as desperate: to bring suit against God. God may have spoken his inescapable condemnation, but Job will have his say as well. So in 9:2 he acknowledges the truth of the vision, paraphrasing 4:17, but he shifts it significantly: “Truly I know that this is so; how then can a mortal be righteous with God [‫ ”?]עם־אל‬Witte thinks this is a late addition to the book that accepts humanity’s low status 67 ‫ נאשׁ‬occurs only 5 other times in the Hebrew Bible (1 Sam 27:1; Eccl 2:20; Isa 57:10; Jer 2:25; 18:12), but every other instance describes something useless or hopeless. 68 Cf. CLINES, Job, 2.731; HARDING, Spirit, 143. 69 Note, for instance, how Job uses ‫ פקד‬of God’s relentless searching after human sin (7:18), where Ps 8:5 used it of God’s care (KYNES, My Psalm, 64).

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and insists on God’s justice,70 but this is no admission of guilt on Job’s part; it is the set-up for an extended depiction of God’s overwhelming power (9:3– 16), which leads to an equally lengthy complaint that God uses that power to commit injustice (9:17–31).71 The point is neatly summed up in the framing verses of each half: In the first, Job complains that God will neither answer charges (9:3), nor permit Job to answer (9:14–16); in the second, Job accuses God of destroying “for no reason” (‫ ;חנם‬9:17), and of intentionally defiling Job, even when he tries to cleanse himself (9:30–31). All of this leads to the final wish that God would remove his “fear” and let Job speak (9:32–35). Then, in ch. 10 Job continues along a similar track, demanding to know what charges God has against him and returning to the image of God as a divine spy (10:1–7). He goes on to accuse God of creating only in order to inflict suffering (10:8–22). All of this can be read as an inference from the vision, as we have seen, but it goes well beyond it, eliminating whatever ambiguity remained in 4:19c–21. Human beings are destroyed by God himself, without regard for their guilt or innocence. This also presupposes a particular answer to the questions raised in 4:17–19b, namely, that none is accounted righteous not because all are guilty, but because God refuses to trust them. This is a conclusion from the vision in light of Job’s own experience, not a straightforward reaffirmation of the vision’s own claims. This is especially clear in 9:11–15, which can be read as an ironic parody of 4:15–19: 11

Surely he goes by me, but I cannot see; he passes by [‫]חלף‬, but I cannot discern him 12 When he snatches away [‫]חתף‬, who can turn him back? who can say to him, “What are you doing?” 13 God does not turn back his anger; even the helpers of Rahab bowed down beneath him. 14 How much less can I answer him, 70 WITTE, Leiden, 94–94, 185. He assigns 9:2–14 to a Gerechtigkeitsredaktion, which emphasizes God’s justice. This is distinguished from and subsequent to the Niedrigkeitsredaktion, in which the vision itself was purportedly added. 71 The fact that Zophar responds to 9:11 in 11:10 makes it unlikely that 9:2–14 is late. Nor are the indications that God’s power are perceived negatively confined to the second half of the chapter. Multiple parallels between 9:2–14 and Deutero-Isaiah reveal that imagery the latter uses to praise God’s creative and redemptive power, Job inverts to complain of God’s unmaking of creation (cf. Job 9:4 with Isa 40:26; Job 9:8 with Isa 44:24; Job 9:12 with Isa 43:13 and 45:9; Job 9:13 with Isa 51:9). HABEL, Job, 190, following FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 224–242, concludes that 9:4 especially is probably an ironic parody of Isa 40:26. For other links between Job and Isaiah, see esp. BRINKS REA, Similarities, 137–47, et passim; KYNES, Job and Isaiah, 94–105, both of whom conclude that Job is probably dependent on Isa 40–55, rather than vice versa. BRINKS REA, Similarities, 151, concludes that nearly a quarter of all the literary parallels between Job and Isaiah are confined to Job 9–10.

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or choose my words with him? 15 Though I am innocent [‫]צדק‬, I cannot answer him; I must appeal to my adversary for mercy.

‫ חתף‬only appears in this form here, but the noun is used in Prov 23:28 of a bandit who “lies in wait” (‫ )ארב‬for the innocent.72 On Job’s reckoning, God “snatches away” like a bandit, with none to oppose him. He is characterized by unrestrained “anger,” before which even the helpers of the monster Rahab are bowed down.73 As noted in Chapter Two, the whole of 9:13–15 can be read as an ironic inversion of the comparison in 4:17–19, replacing God’s “servants” with “the helpers of Rahab” and tying the inescapability of judgment directly to God’s “anger.”74 By linking a close parallel of 4:15–16 with such a reading of 4:17–19, Job makes clear that he sees not just the content but also his reception of the vision as a sign of his unjust condemnation. As in his earlier speech, therefore, Job draws extensively on the vision’s imagery in chs. 9–10, but he also expresses a profound unease about his reception of it. He assumes that it comes from God, but he does not view it with “pride,” only terror and despair. He finds in it a confirmation of God’s unilateral judgment, and believes that its goal is not his enlightenment and reconciliation, but only his condemnation and destruction. Job’s later speeches continue to build on these themes, with and without allusions to the vision. In ch. 12 Job parodies the friends’ appeals to tradition, suggesting that they “ask the beasts” (12:7), then offers an extended depiction of God’s relation to human beings that focuses entirely on the negative.75 Though this section lacks overt allusions to the vision, it implies the same indiscriminate destruction affirmed in 4:19c–21 and drawn out in 9:22–24. 72 The by-form ‫ חטף‬occurs in Judg 21:21 and Ps 10:9, again paired with ‫ארב‬, of violently stealing away. ‫ ארב‬itself appears primarily in two contexts: Of soldiers lying in ambush, and of the wicked lying in wait for a victim (e.g. Judg 16:2, 9, 12; Job 31:9; Ps 59:4[3]; Prov 1:11; 23:28; 24:15; Jer 9:7). Might we also sense in this reference another allusion to the word that “came stealing to me” (‫ )גנב‬in 4:12? In that case, Job would emphasize less the deception than the violence of the divine word. Note that one of the other two uses of the Pual of ‫ גנב‬is of Joseph’s violent kidnapping (Gen 40:15), while the Qal is used to describe the snatching away of the wicked by the wind in Job 21:18 and 27:20. 73 Job has already compared himself to Rahab in 7:12; cf. the much more positive use of this image in 26:12; Ps 89:11[10]; Isa 51:9. Similar figures appear elsewhere in the ANE as adversaries of Baal, Anat, Marduk and others; cf. FUCHS, Mythos, 29–64, though her conclusion that this Chaoskampf myth is a foreign import into the Hebrew Bible must be handled with caution. For discussions of this material in relation to Job 7 and 9–10 specifically, cf. 74–79; HABEL, Job, 192. 74 Chapter Two, Section C.II. 75 SEOW, Job, 624–28, calls this an “antidoxology,” inverting hymns such as Ps 107 (cf. e.g. Ps 107:40 with Job 12:21, 24). Cf. also HABEL, Job, 216–17. KYNES, My Psalm, 89– 91, argues that Job parodies Ps 107 and Job 5:9–26 together.

A. The Vision and Job’s Dispute with God

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Just as significantly, Job emphasizes that God does not just destroy but actively undermines and confuses human beings. For instance: “He makes priests go barefoot, and leads temple servants astray. He removes the speech of the trustworthy, and takes away the discernment of the elders” (12:19–20; cf. 12:16–21, 24–25). Where Job’s account of the vision hinted at God’s deception directed at him personally, he here suggests that this characterizes God’s treatment of mortals in general.76 Job draws similar conclusions in ch. 14, with more direct allusions to the vision (14:1–4; 19–20), and concludes much as he did in ch. 9: that God is unreasonable in his judgment of the smallest of human failings, and destroys human hope without distinction (14:18–22). In between, ch. 13 further builds on Job’s wish for a chance to present his own side directly to God (13:3, 13–28). The vision plays a less direct role in Job’s subsequent speeches, but their line of argument is entirely compatible with the conclusions he has already drawn from it. Job focuses more strongly on the injustice of his own case in chs. 16–17 and 19, directly accusing God of persecuting and even murdering him in 16:9–21 and 19:6–22.77 Though the imagery of God’s unjust violence is different here, this is a clear development from the accusations made in chs. 9–10 and 12–14, leading to his famous appeals to “my witness in heaven” (16:19) and “my redeemer” or “my vindicator” (19:25). I would argue that these appeals are meant to support his legal charge against God, building further on the case set out in those previous speeches.78 This is brought to a head in ch. 23, where Job returns to the desperate possibility of presenting his case before God (23:2–12), but concludes that there is no hope (23:13–17). Here again he emphasizes his fear of the divine presence as an obstacle to the possibility of a fair hearing: “Therefore I am terrified at his presence, when I consider, I dread [‫ ]פחד‬him” (23:15). In 27:2–6, as well, Job sets his own innocence over-against God’s antagonism, using an oath formula that anticipates his closing monologue. In the latter, Job contrasts his former piety and honor, “in the days when God kept 76 As HABEL, Job, 215, notes, this is also a thoroughgoing repudiation of the friends’ claims to reliably pass along wisdom from the ancestors (cf. esp. 12:2–3, 7–16). Cf. also GREENSTEIN, Parody, 75. 77 In these speeches as well Job repeatedly emphasizes the fleeting nature of human life and his own powerlessness before God (16:9–14; 16:22–17:1; 17:11–16; 19:6–12). 78 Cf. MAGDALENE, Scales, 221–22; idem, Redeemer, 312–15; CURTIS, Witness, 549– 563. I argued for this reading of 16:9–21 in a paper presented at the European Association of Biblical Studies, Leipzig, July 31, 2013. Whether 16:19–21 and 19:25–27 express a wish that God himself would take his side (e.g. HOLMAN, Redeemer, 277–381; HERMISSON, Erlöser, 1.667–688; IRSIGLER, Hoffnung, 143–191), or, as I think more likely, look to third parties as intermediaries (e.g. MOWINCKEL, gō’ēl, 207–212; CURTIS, Witness, 549– 562; MAGDALENE, Redeemer, 292–316), they reflect the same feeling of powerlessness before God’s supremacy that Job expresses throughout his speeches.

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watch over me” (29:2b; cf. 29:2–25), with the universal derision he now suffers because God has “become cruel to me” (30:21a, cf. 30:1–31). He closes with a series of oaths of innocence in ch. 31, confirming that the change in status that has befallen him cannot be due to any sin on his part, and concludes with a final wish for a fair hearing (31:35–37). Though there are terminological and stylistic parallels to 4:12–16 to be found throughout these chapters, they do not obviously allude to the vision directly. They do, however, complete Job’s response to the vision begun in ch. 9, declaring his innocence in the face of God’s condemnation, and setting it against God’s unwarranted cruelty. Where the vision implies that God has already condemned him, Job concludes that there is no basis for such a condemnation, and demands a legitimate hearing of his case. All of this implies that while Job builds on the vision’s pessimistic account of divine-human relations, he is not satisfied with it, and certainly not proud of it. On the contrary, he rejects the condemnation he infers from the vision. Far from demonstrating that the vision cannot be Job’s, therefore, his claims to innocence push back against the divine verdict implied by his reception of it. This is precisely why Job’s “dread” is so great: He already “knows” (9:2) from the vision that his suffering is no accidental oversight on God’s part – it is a deliberate act of divine aggression. Perhaps for this very reason, Job is convinced that no simple appeal for rescue will succeed, and pursues the more radical course of legal action.79 That Job does not simply accept the message of the vision is also clear from his speeches in chs. 21 and 24. After his friends abandon their earlier contrast between the innocent and the wicked to focus solely on the dire fate of the latter (chs. 15, 18 and 20), Job concludes the second speech cycle with an extended repudiation of their argument.80 Not only do the wicked not perish, but they enjoy the very prosperity that the friends have claimed is reserved for the righteous (21:7–34).81 This is an extreme conclusion from Job’s argument that destruction is indiscriminate: Not only do the innocent often perish, but the wicked often prosper. This is also, however, an inversion 79

That is not to deny, however, that Job’s wish is that God himself would turn and respond favorably (contra CURTIS, Witness, 549–562, and CLINES, Job, 1.388). Job may have lost faith that this will happen, but it is still his goal (cf. esp. 16:20–21). As BOVATI, Re-Establishing Justice, 85–109, emphasizes, even an accusation generally has the intent to convince the accused to address the wrong, enabling reconciliation. A clear example is Jacob’s accusation of Laban in Gen 31, where the result is not retribution against the offender, but a peaceful covenant. Eliphaz’s final speech reflects this, pairing direct accusations of wickedness with a final appeal to Job to turn to God. 80 HABEL, Job, 323–26; SEOW, Job, 870–77. 81 Job had already hinted at such an inversion in 9:22–24, where he not only affirmed that God destroys the righteous along with the wicked, but even suggested that God supports the wicked (9:24); he also referred to this in 12:6.

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of 4:19c–21, with its uncompromisingly negative portrayal of human fate. Even if it is acknowledged that the latter claims only that any mortal can perish, no hint is given of a better alternative, just as none is given in 12:13– 25. Job’s denial that the wicked suffer this common human lot reflects a further step away from the vision’s own conclusions. Similarly, 24:1–12 focuses on the oppression of the weak by the wicked, affirming that God does not intervene on behalf of the suffering. As I have suggested, however, 24:17–24 may reflect a concession to the friends, either wishing a curse on the wicked or admitting that they (too) will perish, but implying that in the meantime God “gives to him the safety on which he relies” (24:23). In 27:7–12 Job maintains a similar perspective, calling for his enemy to be like the wicked – without hope – yet perhaps also suggesting that God ignores human piety or repentance. From beginning to end, therefore, the vision’s challenge to human righteousness before or compared to God drives much of Job’s discourse. Though he repeatedly reflects on his own reception of it and builds on its message, probably already beginning in 4:19c–21, Job by no means embraces the vision. He sees it not as a defense of his innocence, as Gruber suggests, nor even as an explanation of his suffering, as Smith proposes, but as the foremost sign of God’s antagonism. Even in pushing back against the vision, therefore, Job is responding to the condemnation he infers from his own reception of it, and his conclusion that the wicked do not perish in ch. 21 represents an even more radical inversion of the vision’s message than in his earlier speeches. Thus, even Job’s own response to the vision is not wholly consistent, as he struggles with its apparent condemnation from various angles, even in the original form of the dialogue. We will now see that the same is also true of the friends’ reactions.

B. Revelation and Tradition in the Arguments of the Friends B. Revelation and Tradition in the Arguments of the Friends

The friends have often suffered a poor reputation among interpreters of Job. Their defense of tradition has been deemed “a magnificent caricature,”82 and they themselves have been called “instruments” of Satan.83 They have also been charged with self-contradiction, whether intended,84 or unintended.85 82 WHEDBEE, Comic Vision, 232, cf. 231–36; he claims that the friends become increasingly “ridiculous” as the dialogue proceeds (324–35). 83 FYALL, Eyes, 147, who links this explicitly to the vision, which he attributes to Eliphaz (146–47); similarly, JOHNSON, Eye, 119–120. 84 E.g. J. C. L. GIBSON, Eliphaz, 259–272, who claims that Eliphaz actually agrees with the pessimistic viewpoint of Job and the vision, but refuses to accept it. 85 E.g. FULLERTON, Double Entendre, 320–374; WEISS, Bible from Within, 163–187, 427–431, who each argue that Eliphaz occasionally says more than he means.

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Yet these characterizations are based to a surprising degree on the attribution of the vision to Eliphaz. Once we see that it is Job’s, the friends’ position is left much more consistent and sympathetic. The friends may be inflexible and ultimately mistaken, but the position they maintain is neither unreasonable nor obviously unbiblical.86 They are neither caricatures nor foils, but instead represent a sustained defense of an esteemed traditional view. And even though they are condemned in the epilogue, the book never fully clarifies the truth or falsehood of the positions they maintain. It is time to reconsider their arguments without the baggage of reconciling them to so troubling a vision, and at the same time to reevaluate the epistemological dichotomies that scholars have often attributed to Job and his friends. We have already see that Eliphaz by no means embraces the vision, but instead uses its language to describe Job and the wicked, not himself or humanity in general. In that light, any attempt to set Eliphaz’s reliance on “private revelation” in contrast to Job’s rejection of it cannot be maintained. Yet Greenstein’s and Gruber’s attempts to contrast Job’s own appeals to revelation with the friends’ reliance on “traditional” or “human wisdom” are also problematic. Though the friends are not unified in their approach, Eliphaz at least does seem to view the tradition he represents as genuinely revelatory, and the frequent parallels between his arguments and other biblical literature supports this linkage.87 Bildad and Zophar, however, are much less explicit in linking the tradition to such a divine origin. Bildad especially contrasts primordial tradition with the experience of his contemporaries in a way that Eliphaz never does (8:8– 10), while Zophar tends to use revelatory imagery in a more dismissive manner than the other friends, and expresses a wish that God would speak, perhaps implying that he has not done so (11:5–8). Yet Bildad and Zophar also draw on biblical traditions and forms in building their cases, and whatever the origin of their teachings, all three friends clearly believe that they offer the only legitimate means of reconciliation with God. To be sure, the friends maintain a very different attitude toward revelation than Job does, but it is no consistently negative one. 86

Cf. GINSBERG, Patient, 109–111. Though she still attributes the vision to Job, NEWContest, 90–129, also leaves it out of her analysis of the friends’ position, describing it only in the subsequent chapter on Job’s speeches. On that basis, she offers a more sympathetic reading of the friends’ speeches than is common. ALBERTZ, Sage, 243–261, goes further, portraying the friends’ speeches as an expression of the perspective of the author’s own social group, and also emphasizes the broadly biblical character of their arguments. PHILLIPS, Speaking Truthfully, 31–43, argues that the friends are condemned less for their theology than for their failure to speak to God on Job’s behalf. SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 3–17, et passim, also pushes back against dismissive caricatures of the friends. 87 Cf. ALBERTZ, Sage, 243–261. His focus is on the social background to their speeches, however, and he apparently does not view the tradition the friends defend as revelatory. SOM,

B. Revelation and Tradition in the Arguments of the Friends

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I. Eliphaz’s Responses to the Vision and Use of Tradition Outside of 4:12–21 itself, nothing Eliphaz says depends on the vision for support. Instead, when Eliphaz appeals to what he has “seen” (‫ראה‬, 4:8; 5:3; ‫חזה‬, 15:17), it is always in support of a rejection of the vision’s message: It is not all mortals who perish without wisdom, only “those who plow iniquity” (4:8–11; 5:2–5; 15:20–35).88 That Eliphaz rejects the vision, however, does not mean that he rejects all forms of revelation. For instance, according to Greenstein, 5:1 and 5:8 together constitute an explicit rejection of any reliance on the type of “spirit” mentioned in 4:15.89 On this reading, Eliphaz’s question “Call now; is there anyone who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?” (5:1) “expressly derides any reliance on heavenly spirits.”90 For his own part, “Eliphaz simply ignores the spirit’s message as spurious and tenders Job the received knowledge of the ages,” supporting his arguments “with traditional sayings and proverbs.”91 Such an epistemological contrast is not without foundation, but we have already seen that Eliphaz does not “simply ignore” the vision; he directly contests its claims in 4:7–11 and 5:2–7. Similarly, there is much more to say about the intermediary roles in this speech than simply that Eliphaz rejects “heavenly spirits” in favor of “received knowledge.” We begin with the former, then consider the latter. On the one hand, Greenstein may be correct that 5:1 rejects reliance on revelation from such sources as the anonymous “spirit” in 4:15. Though most have concluded that Eliphaz rejects the idea of angelic intercession, which Elihu may have in view in 33:23–26, this is doubtful.92 Even if the vision is Job’s, it can hardly be read as an appeal for intercession, and nothing else in ch. 3 can either. Elsewhere as well, such an intercessory role is rarely attributed to non-human figures in the Hebrew Bible, so why would Eliphaz reject a view that few held and Job has not invoked?93 Nor are there any other 88

GREENSTEIN, Skin, 72–75. GREENSTEIN, Extent, 246; idem, Skin, 67; similarly, GINSBERG, Patient, 102–4; SMITH, Vision, 454–55. 90 GREENSTEIN, Skin, 67. 91 GREENSTEIN, Skin, 68. 92 E.g. DRIVER AND GRAY, Job, 48–49; FOHRER, Hiob, 146; POPE, Job, 41–42; J. GRAY, Job, 160; HARDING, Metaprophecy, 543 n.29; several of these support this conclusion by an appeal to 33:23–26. See Chapter Three, Section A.III for discussion of the difficulties commentators have had interpreting 5:1. 93 Also questioned by WITTE, Leiden, 72. Though God’s non-human servants are attributed a wide range of roles in the Hebrew Bible, including to reveal divine speech, protect, destroy, bless, guide, gather information for God, cleanse, and more, intercession does not appear to be among them until a very late stage. The only apparent example, noted by DRIVER AND GRAY, Job, 49, is Zech 1:12, where the angel of YHWH seems to intercede for Jerusalem (on the complex redactional history of that passage, cf. HALLASCHKA, Zechariah’s Angels, 13–27, who believes that the angel of YHWH was 89

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indications in the context of 5:1 to suggest that the rejected appeal to the holy ones is seen as a means of going through them to God. On the contrary, we have seen that 5:1–5 is most plausibly read as a rejection of apostasy. As such, 5:1 may well push back against the vision, but it cannot be taken as a rejection of revelation altogether. The contrast with 5:8 suggests that Eliphaz objects not to the possibility of ongoing revelation, but only to the appeal to such an anonymous and ambiguous source as this “spirit.” Job should “seek” (‫ )דרשׁ‬God (5:8), a term that is often used of “inquiring” of God for an oracle, typically through a prophet, priest or other intermediary.94 Whether Eliphaz actually intends the sense of mediated inquiry in his use of ‫ דרשׁ‬cannot be assumed, but at the least it is clear that Eliphaz’s objection is not to the legitimacy of any appeal to the divine, but only to whom he imagines Job has heard or might turn.95 It may even be that Eliphaz offers himself as the mediator of authentic knowledge of God. Such a role may already be implied by the first-person form in 5:8, “but as for me, I would seek God.” It is also suggested by the introduction to the speech, which not only contrasts Eliphaz’s “word to you” (‫ ;דבר אליך‬4:2), with the vision’s “word to me” (‫ ;אלי דבר‬4:12), but also parallels Isaiah’s description of the role of a prophet:

added to this text at a late stage). It is not until the Greek pseudepigrapha that we begin to find more common references to non-human intercessors in Jewish sources (e.g. Tob 12:12, 15; Test. Levi 5:5; Test. Dan. 6:2; 1 En 9:3, 10; 15:2). Wisdom 12:12 asks similarly, in the context of an idol-polemic: “For who will say, ‘What have you done?’ Or who will oppose your judgment? Who will accuse you for the destruction of nations that you made? Or who will come before you as an advocate [ἔκδικος] for the unrighteous?” 94 This term is used of inquiring of God (or another deity) in, e.g., Gen 25:22; Exod 18:15; Deut 12:30; 1 Sam 9:9; 28:7; 1 Kgs 22:5-8; 2 Kgs 1:1–16; 3:11; 2 Chr 34:21; Isa 8:19; 19:3; Jer 8:2; 21:2; Ezek 14:1–11; 20:1–31. Cf. e.g. VAN DAM, Urim and Thummim, 108–112. The term can also be used in a general sense of “seeking” God (e.g. Deut 4:29; Ps 105:4; 119:2; Isa 58:2; Jer 29:13; Lam 3:25; Ezra 7:10). Numerous occurrences, especially in Chronicles, could be taken either way, and DILLARD, Reward and Punishment, 164–172, argues that these play a key role in the chronicler’s defense of “a theology of immediate retribution” (165). 95 Greenstein and most of those who attribute the vision to Job do not seem to acknowledge this possibility, but TUR-SINAI, Job, 98–99, drew from it a surprising conclusion: That Eliphaz himself is not appealing to the high God in 5:8, but to the departed ancestors (cf. Isa 8:19; 1 Sam 28:13). “The friend states unequivocally that he, in contrast to Job (therefore: But I, ‫)ואולם אני‬, really hears the speech of heavenly saints and is therefore able to rely on their testimony for what he is about to say concerning the actions of God the creator” (98). This is even less likely than the claim that Eliphaz does not rely on divine knowledge at all. Eliphaz denies Job’s vision in favor of tradition, but he no more claims to receive messages from the dead than he imagines the tradition to be purely a human construct. Wisdom is divine, but that does not require that the one passing it on has heard it directly from God, much less from the dead.

B. Revelation and Tradition in the Arguments of the Friends

Job 4:2–6 (Eliphaz)

Isa 35:3–4

2

3

If one ventures a word to you, will you be impatient? But who can keep from speaking? 3 See, you have instructed many; you strengthen feeble hands. 4 Your words establish the one who stumbles, and you support faltering knees. 5 But now it comes to you and you are impatient, it reaches you and you are dismayed. 6 Is not your fear your folly, the integrity of your ways your hope?

‫ הנסה דבר אליך‬2 ‫תלאה ועצר במלין מי יוכל‬ ‫ הנה יסרת רבים‬3 ‫וידים רפות תחזק‬ ‫ כושׁל יקימון מליך‬4 ‫וברכים כרעות תאמץ‬ ‫ כי עתה תבוא אליך ותלא‬5 ‫תגע עדיך ותבהל‬ ‫ הלא יראתך כסלתך‬6 ‫תקותך ותם דרכיך‬

251

Strengthen feeble hands, and support stumbling knees. 4 Say to those who are anxious of heart, “Be strong, do not fear! See, here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”

‫ חזקו ידים רפות‬3 ‫וברכים כשׁלות אמצו‬ ‫ אמרו לנמהרי־לב‬4 ‫חזקו אל־תיראו‬ ‫הנה אלהיכם‬ ‫נקם יבוא‬ ‫גמול אלהים‬ ‫הוא יבוא וישׁעכם‬

Every word of Isa 35:3 is repeated in Job 4:3–4, and both texts refer to strengthening (‫“ )חזק‬feeble hands” (‫ )ידים רפות‬and supporting (‫ )אמץ‬faltering or stumbling “knees” (‫ )ברכים‬as a metaphor for encouragement not to abandon trust in God’s rescue.96 This linguistic and thematic parallel seems too close to be coincidental, and the tighter structure of Isa 35:3 suggests that Eliphaz is more likely echoing Isaiah than the other way around.97 If this does 96 Parallel noted by O. KAISER, Hiob, 80; SEOW, Job, 394; CLINES, Job, 1.122; though the latter notes various examples of weak hands or knees being a sign of distress (e.g. 2 Sam 4:1; 2 Chr 15:7; Ezra 4:4; Ps 109:24; Isa 13:7; Ezek 7:17; 21:12[7]; Nah 2:11[10]), only rarely are they used together (Ezek 7:17; 21:12[7]), and a command to strengthen hands and knees as a metaphor for encouragement is confined to these two passages. BRINKS REA, Similarities, does not appear to note this parallel, as she focuses on links to Isa 40–55, but her conclusion that Job is probably dependent on Deutero-Isaiah is relevant, as Isa 35 is itself closely tied to Isa 40–55 in outlook, and possibly even in origins (cf. CHILDS, Isaiah, 253). 97 This is another example of Seidel’s law, as ‫ וידים רפות תחזק‬in Job 4:3 inverts ‫חזקו‬ ‫ ידים רפות‬in Isa 35:3. The splitting of the reference to stumbling (‫ )כשׁל‬knees (‫ )ברכים‬in Isa 35:3b in Job 4:4a and b also supports that the latter is dependent on the former, as does the expansion of Isa 35:3 as a whole into two bi-cola in Job 4:3–4. This is similar to the method seen in Job’s apparent allusion to Ps 8:5[4] in Job 7:17–18, where the tighter structure in the psalm is expanded out to two bi-cola in Job. Within Job, Zophar’s allusion to 7:8a in

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stand behind Job 4:3–4, however, it not only applies such a prophetic role to Job, but also claims the same for Eliphaz. Since Job formerly performed this role, he should now let his friends perform it for him (4:2, 5–6). As such, Eliphaz portrays himself as a spokesman for God, announcing salvation should only Job abandon his “fear” and maintain his “integrity” (4:6). Though the latter reference to “fear” is commonly taken to be elliptical, meaning “fear of God,” Wolfers is correct that following right after a challenge to Job’s “impatience” and “dismay” in 4:5, 4:6a more likely refers to ordinary fear than piety.98 This probably responds to Job’s “dread” in 3:25, which would have been even more prominent in Job’s speech if 4:12–21 originally formed its conclusion.99 If Eliphaz is indeed rejecting “fear” rather than encouraging it in 4:6, then this is another parallel to Isa 35:3–4, which explicitly urges the hearer not to fear, but instead to trust in God’s rescue. That the point is not just that Job previously fulfilled the role described in Isa 35:3–4, but that Eliphaz will now do so himself, is confirmed by the second half of the speech in 5:8–27. Eliphaz not only urges Job to “seek God” (5:8), and accept his discipline (5:17–18), but also promises that if Job does so, he “will not fear [‫ ]ירא‬the destruction that comes” (5:21; cf. 5:22). Here as well, much of what Eliphaz says echoes other biblical texts. For instance, we have already noted how Eliphaz’s condemnation of the fool in 5:2–5 reflects widespread traditions about the fate of those who reject God, including in Deut 32.100 Greenstein notes that Eliphaz’s description of suffering as discipline in 5:17 is also paralleled in Deut 8:5; Prov 3:11–13, and especially Ps 94:12, while the justification given in Job 5:18 resembles Hos 6:1–2 and Deut 32:39, “a text all Israelites are supposed to memorize” (cf. Deut 31:19).101 O. Kaiser also identifies many other parallels between the 20:9 employs a similar technique. In both cases, the direction of dependence is evident from the use of parody in the receiving text. The same is not true in 4:3–6, where there is no indication of parody, but the similar method suggests that it is also secondary. See Chapter Two, Section C.I for a defense of Job’s dependence on Ps 8 rather than vice versa. 98 WOLFERS, Job 15,4.5, 386; cf. HARDING, Spirit, 155. See Chapter Two, Section B.I. 99 Note that in both 3:25 and 4:5 the thing feared “comes” upon Job (‫)בוא‬, while 4:14 makes the same point with a different verb (‫ קרא‬II). 100 See Chapter Three, Section A.III. 101 GREENSTEIN, Skin, 68, 72; cf. idem, Parody, 73, where he finds “nearly a dozen passages in Deut 32 for which there is a distinct parallel in Job” (69; cf. 66–78). WITTE, Torah, 61, also argues that Eliphaz deliberately alludes to Deuteronomy, and considers it “almost canonical” for the book of Job (55). The lexical link between Job 5:18 and Deut 32:39b is not as strong as that between Job 4:3–4 and Isa 35:3, repeating just three key terms in close proximity (‫מחץ‬, ‫יד‬, and ‫)רפא‬, but ‫ מחץ‬and ‫ רפא‬are parallel only in these two passages (and cf. Isa 30:26). GREENSTEIN, Parody, 73, suggests that an allusion is supported by the direct parallel to Deut 32:39c in Job 10:7. Even if a deliberate allusion is less certain, Job 5:17–18 reflects a view of God comparable to that in Deut 32 and elsewhere (cf. CRENSHAW, Divine Discipline, 178–189).

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language and theology of this speech and various biblical traditions, which even if they are no more than echoes still indicate that Eliphaz is defending a position with broad biblical support.102 Thus, Gruber’s contrast between Job’s dependence on revelation and “biblical orthodoxy” on the one hand, and the friends’ human and “Gentile” wisdom on the other, cannot be maintained.103 Instead, it is probable that the very “traditional sayings and proverbs”104 that Eliphaz and the friends rely on were themselves understood to be of divine origin, transmitted by “the ancestors.”105 Though Eliphaz does not make this explicit in his first speech, he strongly implies it in his later ones, especially in 15:9–11, 17–19 and 22:22–23, as we will see. To be sure, Eliphaz does not draw exclusively on biblical antecedents, but that is equally true of Job’s speeches, and indeed of all biblical books. Both Job and his friends regularly echo motifs known more widely in the ancient Near East, including mythological imagery,106 but such a background offers no support for a contrast between Job’s “divine” wisdom and the friends’ “Gentile” knowledge.107 Given that Job’s friends are described as non102

O. KAISER, Hiob, 80–81. Besides the above, the more noteworthy of his examples include: Job 4:7–9 // Ps 37:25–28 and Prov 22:8; Job 4:9 // Isa 40:7; Job 5:9 // Ps 136:4; Job 5:11 // 1 Sam 2:7–8 and Ps 75:8[7]; Job 5:14 // Isa 59:8–10; Job 5:15 // Ps 72:12–14; Job 5:23 // Isa 11:6–9 and 65:25. These are not necessarily close enough to demonstrate deliberate quotations or allusions, but they all reflect similar imagery used to describe God’s relation to human beings to that which Eliphaz uses. Kaiser includes similar lists of parallels for the whole book (79–97), and the same caveats apply to those as well. ALBERTZ, Sage, 246, also affirms that “The wisdom tradition to which Eliphaz is made to call upon is not an international tradition, but rather an emphatically national, Israelite one.” But he does not describe this as revelatory; in fact, he appears to deny that revelation plays a significant role in the friends’ speeches (even 4:12–21 is said to merely wrap a traditional insight in the language of revelation, not to derive from it; 252). 103 GRUBER, Human and Divine, 88–102. 104 GREENSTEIN, Skin, 68. 105 J. GRAY, Job, 148, notes that “The Sages, though professing reason rather than revelation, were still the heirs of the cultic and prophetic traditions of Israel.” 106 Cf. e.g. FUCHS, Mythos, 95–126; MATTINGLY, Pious Sufferer, 305–348. An example in this speech might be seen in the reference to “the sons of Resheph” in 5:7. Though Resheph is mentioned in other biblical texts, including Deut 32:24 (cf. also Ps 76:4; 78:48; Song 8:6; Hab 3:5, most of which do not clearly refer to a divine being), this west Semitic deity is known more widely outside the Hebrew Bible. 107 DE MOOR, Origin of Job, 225–257, dismisses the links between Job and post-exilic literature, arguing that the core of the book derives from a second-millennium Canaanite (perhaps proto-Israelite) document, emphasizing various thematic and linguistic links to the Ugaritic literature (233–242; for further discussion of Ugaritic parallels to Job, without accepting such an origin for the book itself, cf. MICHEL, Ugaritic Texts;. FUCHS, Mythos, and throughout the commentaries of Pope, Habel and Hartley). Job’s poetry does indeed boast a surprising range of links to various texts found at Ras Shamra, but in emphasizing these, De Moor ignores the even more widespread linkages between Job and other biblical books, including post-exilic texts such as Deutero-Isaiah. The absence of allusions to

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Israelites, it should not be surprising that they do not refer to the history of Israel, its covenant, or its God YHWH – even the very late text of Esther, indisputably Jewish, manages to avoid mentioning God – but that only leaves still more notable the extent to which these purported foreigners constantly speak in terms drawn from the scriptures of Israel. In fact, the friends’ use of biblical tradition is nearly always much more sympathetic than Job’s own. In contrast to Job’s tendency to “misuse” the sources and genres he invokes, the friends generally appeal to them straightforwardly, as the example in 4:3–4 illustrates.108 A more far-reaching example, however, is their core argument that the wicked perish but the innocent are protected. Such an idea is certainly not confined to the Hebrew Bible, but there can be no denying that a wide range of biblical traditions assume and affirm that the righteous are blessed and the wicked destroyed.109 Even Gruber admits thematic parallels to Eliphaz’s defense of “retribution theology” in Jeremiah, Psalms and elsewhere, though he dismisses them without any clear grounds, simply noting that some other passages recognize the deficiency of such a dichotomy.110 Job is certainly not alone in challenging the reliability of this link,111 nor is the Hebrew Bible by any means uniIsrael’s national history and covenant hardly proves that the text predates them; it merely reflects the non-Israelite narrative setting (on the near certainty that Job’s author was an Israelite, cf. e.g. FOHRER, Hiob, 42–47; CLINES, Job, 1.lvii; SEOW, Job, 35–46). In no case, however, can the links between Job and non-biblical literature be used to prove a dichotomy between Job and his friends regarding the source of their knowledge, as both parallel mythological and other motifs from non-biblical sources, as indeed does YHWH himself (e.g. 38:4–11). 108 Cf. further, DELL, Sceptical Literature, 109–183; KYNES, My Psalm, 183–87. 109 Cf. e.g. Prov 10:1–10, 24–30; 11:17-31; 26:27; Ps 1:1–6; 37:1–40; Lev 26; Deut 28; 30:1–10; Jer 17:5–13; Isa 58:6–14; 2 Chr 12:1–12. What is more various and debatable is how this linkage was understood, but there is no reason to assume that there is only one “biblical” answer. Though GRUBER, Human and Divine, 88–102, GREENSTEIN, Extent, 246, and many others refer to the “doctrine of retribution,” KOCH, Vergeltungsdogma, 1– 42, and idem, Sein Blut, 396–416, has argued that the Hebrew Bible as a whole (and Proverbs especially) does not link this to divine intervention to punish and bless, but rather assumes that deeds and their appropriate consequences are naturally and intrinsically linked – the so-called Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang. Koch’s generalization is no more compelling than the model he sought to overturn – there are numerous texts that link deeds and consequences via each of these means, and others (cf., e.g. GAMMIE, Retribution, 1– 12) – but the belief that righteousness leads to blessing and wickedness leads to destruction is widespread. Cf. the cautions concerning Koch’s thesis and the way it has been misappropriated – e.g. to pit Job against Proverbs – by HATTON, Cautionary Tale, 375–384. 110 GRUBER, Human and Divine, 90–92, notes that Ps 37:38–39; Jer 17:7–8; Isa 58:7–8 are commonly named affirmations of retribution, then cites Gen 4; Ezek 18:2 and Jer 31:29 as counter-examples (95–96). 111 As BRUEGGEMANN, Theology, 359–403, emphasizes, many texts assume or assert that the link has broken down, and beg God to restore it (e.g. Gen 18:25; Exod 32:11–14;

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fied in how the link is portrayed, but its biblical pedigree can hardly be disputed. Nor is this only some “primitive” doctrine found only in early traditions; some of its clearest reflections are in late texts like Chronicles.112 The friends may strike us as overly rigid in their insistence on the link between sin and suffering, but they stand in very respectable company in upholding it. Gruber’s example from Ps 37 is an excellent illustration. The psalm clearly speaks into a situation in which good and evil do not lead reliably to prosperity and destruction: “Better the little that the righteous has than the great wealth of the wicked” (Ps 37:16).113 But the whole point of the psalm is to urge trust in YHWH, on the grounds that the wicked will indeed perish, and the righteous will be preserved: “I have been young and now I am old, but I have never seen the righteous abandoned or their children begging for bread” (Ps 37:25), “but transgressors will be destroyed all together, the posterity of the wicked will be cut off” (Ps 37:38).114 It is difficult to see any substantive difference between this and Eliphaz’s position.115 Both recognize that the present situation appears out of line with God’s justice, but emphasize the firm conviction that things will turn out as they should. More importantly, the center of their theology is in both cases not the belief in retribution, but trust in God himself.116 The contrasting fates of the righteous and the wicked are a reflection of God’s justice, as the psalmist and Eliphaz see it, but the exhortation to trust God is at the center. In Job 4–5 this is literally true. If the vision did not originally appear in ch. 4, then the whole speech would have centered on 5:8, which is strongly emPss 13; 22; 44; 55; 69; 74; 79; 88; 109; Jer 12:1–4; 20:7–10, 14–18; Hab 1:2–4, 12–17). For the most part, even these texts still conclude with affirmations that God will indeed judge the wicked and rescue the innocent, or at least appeal for him to do so, but in the situation they actually describe, this has not (yet) occurred. The clearest parallel to Job’s more radical doubt of the principle is Ps 88, which is unique in lacking that concluding appeal for restoration. Qohelet also questions this linkage, e.g. Eccl 3:16–22; 4:1–3; 7:15; 8:14; 9:1–3, and even Proverbs sometimes troubles the picture (e.g. Prov 17:1; 19:1). 112 DILLARD, Reward and Punishment, 165, argues that “The Chronicler’s adherence to a ‘theology of immediate retribution’ provides his dominant compositional technique,” reflected both in explicit statement (e.g. 1 Chr 28:8–9; 2 Chr 7:14; 12:5; 15:2; 20:20) and through the implicit reshaping of narratives (e.g. 1 Chr 22:11–13; 2 Chr 12:1–12; 26:5; 31:21; cf. 164–172). In many cases this is tied to “seeking God” (‫ דרשׁ‬or ‫ )בקשׁ‬or failing to do so, just as in Job 5:8–26 (e.g. 1 Chr 10:13–14; 22:19; 28:9; 2 Chr 11:16; 12:14; 14:3, 6[4, 7]; 15:1–15; 16:12; 17:4; 18:4; 19:3; 20:4; 22:9; 25:20; 26:5: 30:19: 31:21: 33:12: 34:3; examples drawn from DILLARD, Reward and Punishment, 166). 113 Following the LXX, Sym and Jerome; cf. KRAUS, Psalms, 1.403; similarly, NJPS. MT reads “the wealth of many sinners.” 114 This acrostic psalm is a fine example of “didactic poetry,” and probably relatively late (KRAUS, Psalms, 1.404). Its confident tone is therefore no evidence of a primitive or naïve author, but instead a reflection of the psalm’s intent. 115 Cf. SCHERER, Lästiger Trost, 37–38. 116 KRAUS, Psalm, 1.408, emphasizes this in the case of the psalm.

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phasized by its alliteration on the name of God (‫)אל‬: ‫אולם אני אדרשׁ אל־אל‬ ‫ואל־אלהים אשׂים דברתי‬. Only one word does not begin with ‫“( דברתי – א‬my case”), perhaps implying that this is all that remains to turn over to God – and the whole is an indirect exhortation to “seek God.”117 This is the heart of Eliphaz’s thought, and all of the confident promises that the wicked perish and the righteous are secure are meant to support this. Freed of the necessity of harmonizing this speech with the vision’s pessimistic evaluation of human moral standing, there is no reason to see in Eliphaz’s contrast an explanation of Job’s suffering – as though to imply that Job deserves what has happened to him – the point is simply that he should not allow present circumstances to rob him of his integrity, because there is hope for the future.118 No matter its purpose and pedigree, however, Eliphaz’s defense of this traditional paradigm not only fails to move Job, but leaves him even more defiant in his subsequent responses. As a result, where Eliphaz’s first speech was mostly conciliatory in its appeal to Job to abandon his complaint and turn to God, his second speech is much more trenchant. The repudiation of “the holy ones” is repeated, this time as part of a rephrasing of the vision itself (15:15), but here it is Job’s own status as bearer of revelation that is under direct attack. We have already seen that the whole of 15:2–16 can be read as a rejection of Job’s vision, which is explicitly attributed to Job in 15:12–16.119 Though several commentators suggest that Eliphaz rejects Job’s claim to “listen in the council of God” (15:8) on the grounds that he himself has done so,120 nothing in 15:2–16 suggests an implicit claim that Eliphaz has stood in the divine council. In light of the explicit attribution of the vision to Job, it seems unlikely that Eliphaz believes any such thing. Nevertheless, in 15:9–11 he contrasts Job’s knowledge not just with the words of the ancestors, but with “the consolations of God” (15:11a). This much more likely recalls Eliphaz’s promises in 5:9–27 than the troubling questions raised by the vision,121 but it still implies that those promises are genuinely divine. It may even be that 15:11b directly contrasts these divine consolations with Job’s vision. Ginsberg notes that the usual reading of ‫ודבר‬ ‫לאט עמך‬, “or a word that deals gently [‫ ]לאט‬with you” (NRSV), is problemat117 Noted by COTTER, Job 4–5, 211–12; NEWSOM, Contest, 109; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 248. Newsom notes that the same occurs on a smaller scale in 8:5, where the point is again that Job should seek God: ‫אם־אתה תשׁחר אל־אל ואל־שׁדי תתחנן‬. 118 NEWSOM, Contest, 102, notes that “by placing Job’s present moment of crisis in the middle of a yet uncompleted story, Eliphaz treats it as something that can be integrated and endowed with meaning.” She sees this as a response to Job’s “turmoil” (3:26), but it also directly contrasts with the sudden destruction depicted in 4:19c–21. 119 See Chapter Two, Section B.II. 120 HARDING, Metaprophecy, 530–31; cf. also BUDDE, Hiob, 77; J. GRAY, Job, 239, who thinks Eliphaz “may consciously echo” Jer 23:18 here. 121 Contra CLINES, Job, 1.351–52; J. GRAY, Job, 239–240.

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ic, and that the clause can be better read as “because a word has reached you by stealth [‫ ”]לאט‬or simply “because a secret [‫ ]לאט‬word is with you.”122 Such a contrastive reading of 15:11 is supported by 15:12–19, where Eliphaz first attributes a parodied version of 4:17–19 to Job, then sets his own view in contrast, appealing in 15:17 to what he has himself “seen” (‫)חזה‬. This uses the verbal form of the same root as “visions” (‫ )חזיון‬in 4:13, 7:14, 20:8 and 33:15, which carries the same associations. Elsewhere, ‫ חזה‬is regularly tied to prophecy or theophany. It is the same verb Job uses of seeing God in 19:26–27, as well as in his denials that he can find God in 23:9 and 24:1. Habel concludes from this that, as in 4:12–21, “Eliphaz is again claiming direct communication with mysterious forces as the basis for his teaching.”123 On the contrary, the use of this term is more likely meant to contrast his position with Job’s vision, but its revelatory connotations should not be dismissed, nor read as pure irony.124 On the one hand, 15:17–19 introduces 15:20–35, which certainly needs no visionary justification. It simply reaffirms and sharpens the response Eliphaz made to the vision in his first speech, insisting that the wicked are destroyed because of their own rebellion, not any aggression on God’s part (cf. esp. 15:24–26). The last verse of the speech even echoes 4:8 and 5:6–7, stating that such destruction falls because human beings give birth to their own mischief or trouble (‫ עמל‬and ‫ ;און‬15:35).125 On the other hand, that Eliphaz traces his tradition back to the ancestors is not to be seen as proof of its merely human nature, but rather of its great authority. The reference in 15:18 to “what the wise have announced, and their ancestors have not hidden [‫]כחד‬,”126 repeats the same term that Job used in 6:10 to deny that he has hidden [‫“ ]כחד‬the words of the Holy One.” Of 122 GINSBERG, Patient, 100–101, 104. This links ‫ לאט‬to secrecy, rather than gentleness, as it is usually translated (cf. ‫ אט‬+ ‫ ל‬in 2 Sam 18:5; Isa 8:6). He takes the MT pointing (‫ )לָאַט‬to render the perfect form of ‫לוט‬, “to wrap up, cover” (cf. 1 Sam 21:10; 2 Sam 19:5; 1 Kgs 19:13; Isa 25:7), but also notes that it could be taken as an adjectival form of ‫לט‬, which appears once as ‫( לאט‬Judg 4:21; cf. also Exod 7:22; 8:3[7], 14[18]; Ruth 3:7; 1 Sam 18:22; 24:5, all of which refer to secrecy, but all the others are nouns preceded by ‫)ב‬. SEOW, Job, 713, though himself opting to translate it “the word (spoken) gently with you,” notes that OG seems to read this as ‫לט‬, translating it with ὑπερβαλλόντως “extraordinarily.” Either the adjectival rendering “a secret word” or Ginsberg’s verbal rendering are possible. On the other hand, Ginsberg’s further claim that ‫ אל‬in 15:11a be taken not as a divine name, but as a demonstrative meaning “these men,” is doubtful and unnecessary. 123 HABEL, Job, 257. 124 Cf. Eliphaz’s use of ‫ ראה‬in 4:8 and 5:3, where ‫ ראה‬is itself a constituent feature of the vision report genre; cf. BEHRENS, Visionsschilderungen, esp. 32–35. 125 HABEL, Job, 250. 126 The MT reads “have not hidden from their ancestors” (‫)ולא כחדו מאבותם‬, which is unlikely. With most, I take the ‫ מ‬at the beginning of ‫ מאבותם‬as accidentally transferred from the end of ‫כחדו‬, where it was probably originally enclitic (so HABEL, Job, 247).

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course, this might simply refer to the wise passing along human traditions, but the link to the very earliest generations suggests something primordial, not merely “human.”127 Nor should the biblical echoes of the following depiction of the wicked be dismissed. For instance, Seow notes that the depiction of “a day of darkness” in 15:23–24 parallels accounts of the day of YHWH, which is described in similar terms in Joel 2:2; Amos 5:18 and Zeph 1:14– 15.128 As in his first speech, it is precisely because Eliphaz believes that the tradition is trustworthy in its portrayal of God’s relation to humanity that he so vehemently rejects Job’s critiques of it. Just as important as the source of Eliphaz’s words, however, is their intent, which has clearly shifted from his first speech. Gone is the balanced contrast between the righteous and the wicked, the encouragement that Job maintain his integrity and seek God, and the concluding promise of restoration. After listening to four speeches of increasingly brazen accusations of God, Eliphaz takes a sharper line. Not only does he directly challenge Job’s “words” in 15:2–16, but the following depiction of the wicked draws extensively on Job’s own self-descriptions, including in 4:12–16.129 Such a response is hardly surprising in the face of claims as shocking as Job’s, but it also reflects a clear breakdown of communication, as Eliphaz is simply unwilling to consider the force of Job’s objections to his traditional theology. Armed with an unshakable conviction that God is just, which he claims to have seen confirmed with his own eyes, Eliphaz cannot or will not see in Job an exception, much less a disproof of the paradigm. The conclusion of such an approach is predictable. After the uncompromising accusations Job levels against God in chs. 16 and 19, and the complete inversion of the friends’ view of the fate of the wicked in ch. 21, Eliphaz runs out of patience. Concluding that Job must have truly abandoned piety for wickedness, his final speech directly accuses Job of various serious offenses (22:4–11) reaffirming the assurance of God’s judgment against the wicked (22:12–20). Yet even here, Eliphaz still cannot be dismissed as a mere caricaThe obscure reference in 15:19, “to whom alone the land [or the earth; ‫ ]הארץ‬was given, and no stranger passed among them,” might also support an allusion to the divine source of the tradition. Though often taken as an out of character allusion to the preexilic sages (e.g. ALBERTZ, Sage, 245), it seems better to read this as a reference to the very first humans, to whom the earth was given, on comparison to 20:4 and Deut 4:32, which link the tradition to the first placement of human beings on the earth (the OG also seems to understand it this way, translating ‫ הארץ‬with ἡ γῆ; cf. SEOW, Job, 703). Second, “was given” is presumably a divine passive, and while it most directly refers to “the earth,” it suggests a comparable origin for the wisdom they passed along. 128 SEOW, Job, 704–5, notes that Zeph 1:15 parallels both the expression “day of darkness” (‫ )יום־חשׁך‬in Job 15:23, and the terms “distress” (‫צרה‬/‫ )צר‬and “anguish” (‫ )מצוקה‬in Job 15:24. The latter term appears only 5 other times in the Hebrew Bible, four of which are in the repeated refrain in Ps 107:6, 13, 19, 28; the other is in Ps 25:17. 129 See Chapter Two, Sections A.IV and B.II. 127

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ture. For at the very moment when his rhetoric becomes most unreasonable, he returns to offer renewed hope for Job’s repentance and restoration.130 Despite everything that has been said in the second speech cycle, Eliphaz remains forward-looking in his approach. He may seem inflexible in failing to account for Job’s innocence, but he is also consistent in maintaining that there is always hope for those who truly repent and seek God (22:21–30). In this final speech, therefore, Eliphaz encapsulates the worst and the best of the friends’ adherence to this traditional theology, carrying it to its logical conclusion: That Job must indeed be wicked, but that there is still time to repent. Meanwhile, Eliphaz also makes explicit what he has implied all along: that this tradition is not merely “what I have seen,” but is itself divine. He expressly urges Job to “Receive instruction from his [=God’s] mouth, and lay up his words in your heart” (22:22). This by no means refers to the vision, but by appealing directly to God’s “words” and “instruction” or “law” (‫)תורה‬, Eliphaz leaves no doubt that the perspective he has been defending corresponds to this divine instruction, and urges Job to accept it. Eliphaz may reject Job’s vision, but he certainly does not reject revelation in general; the tradition he represents is God’s own ‫תורה‬.131 That Eliphaz could affirm his own while dismissing Job’s status as a mediator of divine revelation is neither unprecedented nor surprising in the wider Hebrew Bible, given his perception that Job has set himself against God. Neither is it contradictory that Eliphaz could accept the possibility of revelation transmitted by the ancestors, but reject Job’s appeals to an anonymous and ambivalent vision to ground his accusations of divine injustice. As far as Job’s vision and his subsequent interpretations of it threaten such a conclusion, Eliphaz spares no words to ridicule and condemn such a course, but in defending his own position he is supremely confident in the authority of his tradition as a reliable guide to peace with God.

130

This pairing of accusation with an offer of reconciliation is not mere doublemindedness; it reflects the common pattern of a disputation. As BOVATI, Re-Establishing Justice, 85–119, et passim, emphasizes, accusations were meant to spur the accused to repent and seek reconciliation. 131 Whether this can be taken to refer not just to generic “instruction,” but to the Torah itself, cannot be assumed, but neither should it be dismissed out of hand. That Eliphaz is portrayed as a Gentile would seem to preclude such an association, but the many ways Eliphaz has in fact echoed biblical traditions, including from the Pentateuch, leaves the possibility open. WITTE, Torah, 54, defends the latter conclusion, arguing that Deuteronomy forms the background of the debate through all of its redactional layers (55, cf. 55–65). He concludes, “Against this background, Eliphaz’s admonition that Job should accept ‫תורה‬ from the mouth of God and lay God’s words in his heart (22:22) is more than general sapiential advice. This is Eliphaz’s ultimate attempt to bring Job to the path of the Deuteronomic commandments (cf. Deut 6:6)” (60, cf. 61).

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II. Revelation and Tradition in the Speeches of Bildad and Zophar In many ways Bildad and Zophar reflect similar assumptions about the origins of their tradition, and the vision they reject, but the three friends are not entirely aligned in their approaches to these matters. They all defend the same dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked, but they each nuance and support this contrast in different ways. Eliphaz appeals to the evidence of his own eyes to confirm the tradition, and explicitly links it to God. Neither Bildad nor Zophar appeals to their own experience in such a way, and while they do appeal to ancestral traditions, neither makes explicit whether the source of these traditions is divine. Zophar appears the most dismissive of the possibility of (new) revelation, while Bildad is the only friend to make positive use of the vision’s imagery, and only as a final concession. The closest parallel to Eliphaz’s approach is found in Bildad’s first speech. In light of 6:10, 6:26 and 7:11, his opening declaration that Job’s words are “a great wind” (‫ ;רוח כביר‬8:2) is probably meant to dismiss his vision, just as Eliphaz will do more fully in 15:2–8.132 In that case, 8:3–4 can be seen as a direct challenge to Job’s inferences from the vision, denying that God is the guilty party: “Does God distort justice? Or does the Almighty distort righteousness? If your children sinned against him, then he gave them into the hand of their transgression [‫]פשׁע‬.”133 Following shortly after Job’s question, “Why do you not pardon my transgression [‫ ]פשׁע‬and pass over my iniquity?” (7:21), Bildad affirms that God’s judgment is just, and Job’s complaint unfounded. He goes on to promise protection and restoration if only Job will seek God (8:5–7), again echoing Eliphaz’s position. As Greenstein emphasizes, this conclusion is explicitly derived from traditional wisdom (8:8–10),134 but it is doubtful that this can be taken as a rejection of revelation in favor of human knowledge.135 On the one hand, Bildad does describe this tradition in terms that suggest human activity: The ancestors have “found” it (‫ ;חקר‬also used in 5:27), a term not normally connected to the divine, except to deny that God can be (fully) known by that means.136 132 SMITH, Vision, 458. HABEL, Job, 174, also recognizes that 8:2 responds to 6:26, without seeing a link to the vision. 133 CAESAR, New Thesis, 436, recognizes that this rejects the vision, but sees it as a response to Eliphaz. 134 GREENSTEIN, Skin, 64–65. 135 Contra GRUBER, Human and Divine, 88–102; CAESAR, New Thesis, 441–42. 136 It is used of human investigations (never for revelation, as ‫ דרשׁ‬is used) in, e.g., Deut 13:15; Judg 18:2; 1 Sam 20:12; 2 Sam 10:3; Prov 25:2: Eccl 12:9. God himself investigates people (Job 13:9; Ps 44:22; 139:1, 23; Jer 17:10), but human beings cannot investigate God (Job 5:9; 9:10; 11:7; 36:26; Ps 145:3; Isa 40:28; cf. Job 28:3; 38:16). Bildad also affirms that this wisdom comes from their “hearts” (‫ ;לב‬Job 8:10), and while GINSBERG, Patient, 97, is probably right that this is portrayed as an organ of speech here (cf. GREENSTEIN, Skin, 64 n. 5, idem, Extent, 254), it could imply that they pass along their own words.

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On the other hand, Habel emphasizes that such “appeals to ancient tradition” are seen as a legitimate source of knowledge and authority elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, particularly in Deuteronomy and Deutero-Isaiah.137 For instance, Deut 32:7–9 employs a form very similar to Job 8:8–13, each beginning with an appeal to primordial times as a source of knowledge (Deut 32:7; Job 8:8–10), followed by a quotation of the received knowledge itself (Deut 32:8; Job 8:11–12), then an application to the situation at hand (Deut 32:9; Job 8:13, further elaborated in 8:14–22).138 There is even an almost verbatim parallel to Job 8:8a in the use of this form in Deut 4:32–35: Deut 4:32a-b

Job 8:8

For ask now of the first days, long before your own, ever since the day that God created humanity on the earth;

For ask now of the first generations, and consider what their ancestors have found;

‫כי שׁאל־נא לימים ראשׁנים‬ ‫אשׁר־היו לפניך‬ ‫למן־היום אשׁר ברא אלהים אדם על־הארץ‬

‫כי־שׁאל־נא לדר רישׁון‬ ‫וכונן לחקר אבותם‬

That a similar form of appeal is also used in the Pentateuch and by the prophets already undermines Gruber’s dichotomy between Job’s “divine revelation” and the friends’ “human wisdom,” but we can also go further. Habel notes that such appeals are not simply to older wisdom, but to primordial wisdom. This is explicit in Deut 4:32 as well as in Bildad’s curious reference to the ancestors of the first generations,139 and similar expressions appear in other appeals as well.140 Such a primordial origin probably implies a link to the divine, as Eliphaz’s denial of Job’s access to primordial wisdom in 15:7 confirms.141 Further, the very tradition that Bildad introduces in this way – a depiction of a plant’s dependence on water (8:11–18) as an analogy for the contrasting fates of the righteous and the wicked – finds close parallels in Jer 17:5–8 and Ps 1, the former of which is explicitly introduced as a word of YHWH (17:5).142 Given Job’s many other links to Deuteronomy, Jeremiah and 137

HABEL, Appeal, 253–272; cf. idem, Job, 175–76. HABEL, Appeal, 254–57: Other examples are Deut 4:32–35; Isa 40:21–24; 41:4; 45:18–28; 46:8–11; 48:3–8; cf. also Jer 6:16; 18:13–17. He also notes Zophar’s use of similar language in ch. 20 (261–62), and Job’s parody of the form in 12:7–12. GREENSTEIN, Skin, 70–72, suggests that this form of argument is characteristic of the friends’ speeches overall. 139 HABEL, Appeal, 255; idem, Job 175–76. This is similar to the anomaly in 15:18. 140 E.g. Deut 32:7; Isa 40:21; Job 20:4. 141 Contra Caesar, New Thesis, 436, 441. 142 HABEL, Job, 171, following GORDIS, Job, 521. Even GRUBER, Human and Divine, 91, quotes Jer 17:7–8 as a parallel to the position of the friends, yet curiously seems to deny that the view it expresses is biblical (92–93). 138

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the Psalms, it is entirely possible that Bildad has one or more of these specific texts in view, but even if not, it is doubtful that he considers this tradition mere “human” knowledge.143 Nevertheless, there are two points where Bildad diverges from Eliphaz’s perspective, at least as seen in his first two speeches. First, by not just promising Job restoration if he should maintain his integrity, but also suggesting that Job’s children died due to their “transgression” (8:4), Bildad reflects a much more troubling approach to the doctrine of retribution – the idea that one can retroactively declare a person guilty or innocent based on their fate. Eliphaz may reflect this as well in his final speech, but there it seems merely a hyperbolic response to Job’s controversial claims. Bildad begins here. Second, while Eliphaz repeatedly appeals to what he himself has “seen,” Bildad never does so. Instead, he deliberately contrasts the ancestral tradition with “our days,” which are fleeting (8:8–9; cf. the use of ‫ חקר‬in 5:27 and 8:8). He is unwilling to place his own experience on the same level as the tradition. Whether that is because Bildad believes the tradition ultimately goes back to God himself, or not, this perspective diverges from both Job’s and Eliphaz’s stances, undermining any simple dichotomy between the epistemologies of Job and his friends.144 This is all the more true of Zophar. As we have seen, Job responds to Bildad’s reaffirmation of traditional wisdom with a more strident exposition of his understanding of the vision in chs. 9–10. This, in turn, sparks a reaction from Zophar, who maintains a similar view of the fates of the righteous and the wicked, but adopts a different stance toward the availability of divine knowledge. Job has just accused God of abusing his power to subvert justice (9:17–24), and complained of God’s unwillingness to overlook even the smallest iniquity (10:14; cf. 7:11–21). Zophar responds that it is unreasonable to expect God to overlook iniquity (11:11–12). Rejecting Job’s claims to “know” that God has turned against him (9:2, 28), Zophar insists that Job cannot possibly “know” (11:8), because God’s wisdom is unfathomable (11:5–9).145 Thus Zophar not only rejects the vision, and with it Job’s claim to divine knowledge, but he also seems to take a harder line against appeals to revelation in general than Bildad or especially Eliphaz. Nor does he explicitly appeal to tradition in this speech as they had done. How Zophar knows any of what he is saying is simply left out of the picture here.146

143 J. GRAY, Job, 183, also thinks that 8:5–7 is built on the prototype of a prophetic warning. 144 Bildad’s second speech lacks any overt references to the source of its teaching, but he again assumes that ignoring it will lead to death. Indeed, his whole speech is an extended account of the dismal fate of “those who do not know God” (18:21). 145 HABEL, Job, 208; SEOW, Job, 601–2. 146 Contra HABEL, Job, 204.

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In Zophar’s second speech, however, he does appeal to primordial tradition, and pairs it with a number of critical allusions to the vision. For instance, most assume that Zophar is referring to himself in 20:2–3, and the NRSV even interprets its reference to a ‫ רוח‬as a claim to have heard from a “spirit” external to himself: “I hear censure that insults me, and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me [‫( ”]ורוח מבינתי יענני‬20:3). But few follow this understanding of the preposition ‫ מן‬as “beyond” rather than “out of.” Most read or emend this to refer indirectly to Zophar himself. For instance, Habel translates: “my discerning spirit leads me to answer.”147 As we have seen, however, 20:2–3 is more likely meant as a mocking paraphrase of Job than as a description of the source of Zophar’s own words.148 In that case, the text can be read without emendation to affirm that “a spirit from my understanding answers me,” implying that Job speaks from his own “troubling thoughts” and “spirit.” This is comparable to the dismissals of the vision in 8:2 and 15:2–8, which is supported by the reference to “visions of the night” in 20:8 (from 4:13; ‫)חזינות לילה‬. Zophar treats these not as a source of revelation, but as an analogy for the swift destruction of the wicked: “He flies away like a dream [‫]חלום‬, and they do not find him; he is chased away like a vision of the night [‫]כחזיון לילה‬.” Similarly, the depiction of the wicked growing to the heavens and being cast down for hubris (20:5–29) parallels similar accounts in Isa 14:12–20 and Ezek 28:2–10.149 If such an image is meant to describe Job specifically, and not just the wicked in general, it implies a comparable rejection of his access to heaven to that which Eliphaz made explicit in 15:7–8, but nothing in the text indicates that Zophar considers such access to heaven to be otherwise legitimate, as though he could offer what Job cannot. Combined with 20:2–3 and 11:5–9, this may imply a more dismissive attitude towards revelation in general than the other two friends reflect, but this is by no means certain. For even if Zophar only alludes to new revelation dismissively, he is still defending a tradition with strong biblical resonances, as the similarity to Isa 14 and Ezek 28 illustrates. Further, like Eliphaz and 147

HABEL, Job, 310, cf. 315–16; similarly, DHORME, Job, 290–91, translates “an impulse of my understanding prompts me to reply” (cf. also CLINES, Job, 1:471, 473). GRUBER, Human and Divine, 99, translates “It is a spirit born of my intellect that makes me reply [to you].” POPE, Job, 149, 151, emends the verse to read “the spirit of my frame,” though it is not clear what this expression is thought to mean. Such translations require us to read ‫ יענני‬as a Hiph, against the MT, but they follow the more common usage of ‫מן‬, and better fit the parallel in 20:2, “my troubling thoughts [‫ ]שׂעפים‬turn me about [or perhaps: “urge me to answer;” ‫שׁוב‬, Hiph], because of the anxiousness within me.” 148 TUR-SINAI, Job, 308–311; cf. SMITH, Vision, 458. See Chapter Two, Section A.IV. 149 POPE, Job, 151; HABEL, Job 316. There are also thematic links to the psalms, but Zophar seems primarily interested in turning Job’s own self-descriptions against him; cf. HABEL, Job, 314–15; HOLBERT, Skies, 171–79.

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Bildad, Zophar pairs this rejection of Job’s vision with an appeal to what has been known “from of old,” again with a close verbal parallel to Deut 4:32: Deut 4:32a-b

Job 20:4

For ask now of the first days, long before your own, ever since the day that God created humanity on the earth;

Do you not know this from of old, since humanity was set upon the earth,

‫כי שׁאל־נא לימים ראשׁנים‬ ‫אשׁר־היו לפניך‬ ‫למן־היום אשׁר ברא אלהים אדם על־הארץ‬

‫הזאת ידעת מני־עד‬ ‫מני שׂים אדם עלי־ארץ‬

This emphasizes the primordial nature of the tradition,150 and in light of the earlier parallel to this same verse in a similar context in 8:8, it is not impossible that both are intentional allusions to Deut 4. If so, it is interesting how that passage itself continues: For ask now of the first days, long before your own, ever since the day that God created humanity on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other end of the heavens, has this great thing ever happened, or has its like ever been heard? Has a people heard the voice of God speaking from the fire as you have heard, and lived? (Deut 4:32–33)

If this particular passage is in view, it would imply more than just an appeal to primordial authority in general. Combined with Eliphaz’s explicit appeal to God’s ‫ תורה‬in 22:22 and the numerous other potential allusions to Deuteronomy across the dialogues,151 this might even deliberately link the friends’ tradition to the central revelation of the biblical tradition. This would deepen the resonance of their dismissal of Job’s vision, effectively denying Job’s claim to new revelation on the grounds that God has already revealed himself fully and finally, long ago. Without tying this to Job 20:4, nor recognizing that the vision should be attributed to Job, Witte suggests that the vision itself is “redolent of Deut 4,” among other texts.152 He notes especially the reference to the spirit’s “form” (‫ )תמונה‬in Job 4:16, which uses a term that only occurs nine other times in the Hebrew Bible, five of which appear in Deut 4.153 Where Moses declares that the Israelites did not see YHWH’s ‫( תמונה‬Deut 4:12, 15), Job claims that the ‫ תמונה‬was “before my eyes” (Job 4:16). In that light, it is not implausible that

150

Cf. HABEL, Job, 313, 316; idem, Appeal, 261–62 (mistakenly attributed to Eliphaz). Cf. most recently, WITTE, Torah, 54–65; GREENSTEIN, Parody, 66–78. 152 WITTE, Torah, 63. 153 Cf. Deut 4:12, 15, 16, 23, and 25; the other occurrences include another reference to Moses’ vision of God’s form (Num 12:8), the two prohibitions of making idols in the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:4; Deut 5:8), and Ps 17:15. 151

B. Revelation and Tradition in the Arguments of the Friends

265

Bildad’s and Zophar’s appeals to ancient tradition are indeed meant also to implicitly deny that Job has seen what even the ancestors have not. None of that is explicit in Zophar’s speech, however, and it remains possible that Job 8:8 and 20:4 merely reflect a common form rather than specifically alluding to Deut 4.154 Further, unlike Eliphaz and Bildad, Zophar does not even say how mortals have known of God’s justice from earliest times. Despite the biblical resonances of his language, Zophar does not name his source. He does not describe the reception or passing down of the tradition from the ancestors as they do. Yet even if he does not explicitly state that the wisdom he passes on comes from God, he certainly affirms that ignoring it will lead to destruction from God (20:15, 29).155 Thus, while on the whole Zophar is the most critical of new revelation among the friends, even he cannot be pigeon-holed as a defender of mere “human” knowledge. That leaves only Bildad’s final speech, which as we have seen takes yet a different approach. In contrast to the direct repudiations of the vision seen in the earlier speeches of the friends, Bildad’s final speech uses the vision to celebrate God’s supremacy. Smith’s and Greenstein’s only concern with this passage is the fact that it paraphrases the vision, which they take to support its attribution to Job, while Tur-Sinai and Ginsberg simply deny that Bildad could have used the vision positively, and reattribute ch. 25 to Job.156 But as we have seen, chs. 25–26 probably originally offered a final concession to Job and his vision. As such, the speech represents a shift in Bildad’s position, but one still in keeping with his earlier approach. His paraphrase of 4:17–19 in 25:4–6 employs a similar method to that seen in 15:14–16, but where Eliphaz sharply repudiated the vision’s viewpoint, Bildad now positively reinterprets it. By replacing the explicit references to “angels” (4:18) and “holy ones” (15:15), with “the moon” and “the stars” (25:5), Bildad eliminates the troublesome suggestion that God mistrusts his own servants. Similarly, by framing the vision with an account of God’s supremacy, while omitting its references to human destruction, he brings it much more closely in line with the friends’ perspective. Unlike the earlier speeches of the friends, therefore, this paraphrase seems to straightforwardly accept the low status of humanity depicted by the vision, 154

That appears to be Habel’s conclusion (HABEL, Appeal, 254–272), though he does state that “the allusion to placing ʾadam ʿalê-aræṣ [in Job 20:4] recalls the creation of ʾadam ʿăl-haʾaræṣ in Deut 4 32” (262). That nearly all of the parallels to this form derive from Deuteronomy and Deutero-Isaiah, texts with which Job boasts other close links, leaves open both the possibilities of a deliberate allusion or a shared generic convention. 155 Even heaven and earth will serve God in turning against the wicked (20:27), perhaps a response to Job’s appeal to earth and heaven as witnesses in 16:18–19; cf. HABEL, Job, 315, 319–320. 156 TORCZYNER, Hiob, 181; TUR-SINAI, Job, 376–77; GINSBERG, Patient, 102–4.

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while advancing a very different interpretation of its message than that which Job defended in his speeches. Bildad quotes 9:2b in 25:4, yet unlike Job, he seems to embrace humanity’s lowliness in contrast to God. If anything, then, Bildad’s interpretation of the vision in this speech is much less critical than Job’s own, and represents a significant concession. Despite their diametrically opposed conclusions, both Job and this third speech of Bildad appear to rely on the vision to express their positions, but for Job the result is terror; for Bildad it appears to be praise. If 26:2–4 and 26:14 were indeed originally part of Bildad’s speech, however, they frame this more positive interpretation of the vision with dismissals, challenging the source of Job’s words (26:4) and concluding that this “whisper of a word” cannot truly compare to God’s power itself. Thus, even though this speech concedes human lowliness to the vision, it maintains a similar stance toward such modes of revelation to that voiced in Bildad’s first speech. Nevertheless, the significance of this concession must not be underestimated: For the first and only time, one of the friends concludes that human beings are indeed lowly and pitiful compared to God, without denying – as Job does – that God judges rightly. It has commonly been affirmed that the friends simply fall into repetition and silence in the third speech cycle, as though they have nothing more to say in the face of Job’s arguments.157 But this final speech demonstrates that the friends are not above shifting their position in response to Job’s claims. While Job is certainly the more flexible and creative thinker of the four, even the friends are neither monolithic nor uncompromising in their approach. Their dispute with Job, no matter how heated it becomes in the second speech cycle, remains a genuine dialogue. The ways chs. 25–26 both reframe Job’s insistence on human lowliness and push back against his accusations demonstrates that the friends are also capable of adopting certain elements of Job’s perspective into their system, even if only by way of concession. This phenomenon is not even limited to the third speech cycle. Though they never question the doctrine that the righteous are saved and the wicked destroyed, the friends’ shifting views of Job’s innocence also demonstrate that they are paying attention to, even if unconvinced by, his arguments. Job 5:6–7 and 5:17–18 may also reflect concessions to the vison, admitting that all mortals can suffer “trouble” or “discipline,” but insisting that one must still “seek God” (5:8), and trust in his justice (5:9–27). Far from a simplistic repetition of Eliphaz’s vision, as it is commonly described, Bildad’s final speech confirms this aspect of the friends’ approach, and demonstrates that they are not mere foils for Job’s radical conclusions – they are capable representatives of a venerable tradition. 157 E.g. NEWSOM, Contest, 164–68; SEOW, Elihu’s Revelation, 257; idem, Job, 29–31; LONGMAN, Job, 388–89.

B. Revelation and Tradition in the Arguments of the Friends

267

III. The Epistemology of the Friends and Job’s Critique It has often been suggested that the friends’ are self-contradictory or otherwise confused, and Newsom even goes so far as to suggest that logical consistency may not have been valued by those responding to suffering.158 But while the friends’ views do shift during the course of the dialogue, we have seen that most of the apparent contradictions in their approaches evaporate once we realize that they are all responding to Job’s vision, not defending Eliphaz’s. Still less can they be dismissed as mere caricatures of traditional sages, even if their arguments sometimes carry them to problematic conclusions (e.g. 8:4; 22:4–20). Though their rhetoric becomes increasingly critical as we progress from ch. 4 to ch. 22, they are generally consistent and coherent, even if ultimately they are wrong. The dialogue eventually breaks down, but they appear to be genuinely seeking to help Job see past his own suffering to a better future.159 Their rejection of the vision is a reflection of that faith, not a contradiction of it. Without the vision’s pessimistic account of human fate, we can see that Job’s friends maintain a consistent theology but differing epistemologies. All three reject any suggestion that the innocent might be destroyed, and insist that Job’s only hope is to maintain his trust in God. But how they defend this paradigm differs. They all appeal to ancestral wisdom and echo biblical traditions, but Zophar seems most reticent to describe these with positive revelatory imagery, while Bildad denies the significance of contemporary experience in favor of tradition. Only Eliphaz both emphasizes what he himself as “seen” and appeals directly to God’s own “words” and ‫תורה‬. But in echoing or alluding to Deut 4, Bildad and Zophar may also imply the same source for their tradition. Though they all reject Job’s vision, up until ch. 25, the friends cannot simply be reduced to adherents of “human tradition.” They are neither as unified in their approach nor as dismissive of revelation as this implies. They may not all describe the tradition in the same terms, but they all assume that it offers the only legitimate means of peace with God. In the wider context of the Hebrew Bible, it is not the friends’ defenses of God’s justice, but Job’s radical inversions of it that stand out as unusual. Whatever the friends’ failings, and whatever distortions may be detected in their own presentation, they are far from caricatures. Yet neither are they given the last word. Greenstein is right to contrast the friends’ adherence to ancestral wisdom with Job’s willingness to challenge it based on his own corporeal experience, “on my skin and in my flesh.”160 The difference is not that Job relies on experience and revelation while they do 158

NEWSOM, Consolations, 355–56. NEWSOM, Contest, 101–5. 160 GREENSTEIN, Skin, 63–77. 159

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not, but that Job can no longer reconcile his experience, tradition or revelation, while Eliphaz remains convinced that all sources of legitimate knowledge agree and mutually support one another. For Eliphaz, what “I have seen,” inevitably corresponds to what “the wise have not hidden,” which is identical with “the consolations of God.” The other friends may emphasize only one of those three sources of knowledge, but they too are unwilling to accept any challenge to the truth they all share. This is no mere academic debate. In the emotionally charged aftermath of Job’s tragedy, the conflict between Job’s bitter experience and his friends’ firm convictions grows steadily hotter, and eventually boils over into vitriolic recrimination. While the friends respond to Job’s accusations with more and more extreme accounts the destruction of the wicked, and finally directly accuse Job of gross wickedness, Job counters by dismissing them as “worthless physicians” (13:4), “miserable comforters” (16:2), “mockers” (17:2), and “altogether vain” (27:12). He even accuses them of lying for God in 13:7–8: 7

Will you speak falsely for God, and will you speak deceitfully for him? 8 Will you be partial to him, or will you even contend for God?

This is generally read as a charge that the friends falsely speak in God’s favor,161 but the passage concludes by dismissing their “proverbs,” which could imply that the whole serves to critique their status as representatives of tradition: “Your reminders are proverbs of ash, your answers are answers of clay” (13:12).162 Given the many links between the friends’ arguments and wider biblical traditions, this is a serious challenge, and it should hardly surprise that Job’s friends respond vigorously throughout the second speech cycle. This passage confirms that the dispute between Job and his friends runs much deeper than a mere difference of theology or epistemology; it represents a clash between competing claims to speak of and for God. Yet the resolution of that dispute lies not in the dialogue itself, but in its framework, which we will now see is every bit as conflicted as the dialogue it frames.

161

E.g. DHORME, Job, 184; HORST, Hiob, 177, 195; POPE, Job, 96, 98; FOHRER, Hiob, 234, 248; HARTLEY, Job, 218, 220; SEOW, Job, 639, 655. HABEL, Job, 223, 228–29, and CLINES, Job, 1.276, 307–8, tie this to Job’s legal metaphor, condemning Job’s friends as “false witnesses.” GINSBERG, Patient, 98, instead translates 13:7 “Will you tell lies to God?” But given that the friends never once speak to God in the entire book – only Job ever addresses God directly – this is unlikely. 162 That this dismisses their reliance on traditional wisdom is acknowledged by, e.g., WEISER, Hiob, 98; POPE, Job, 99; FOHRER, Hiob, 249, though none of these admit the same in 13:7–8.

C. Conclusions

269

C. Conclusions C. Conclusions

Given how much has been written on the vision in 4:12–21 itself, it is surprising how little attention its wider reflections within the book have received. Most commentators who accept its present attribution to Eliphaz treat it as an anomaly and grant it little significant role in the book as a whole. Even those who do consider its present position secondary tend to appeal to its later quotations for little more than support of their reconstructions. Though it is occasionally acknowledged that Bildad and Elihu reframe the vision in more comfortably “orthodox” terms, the foundational role that the vision plays in Job’s speeches, the somewhat divergent ways in which his interlocutors respond to it, and the shifts evident in the vision’s treatment in the second half of the dialogue had never been examined in detail. As a result, a number of scholars have defended dichotomizing contrasts between the epistemologies of Job and his friends based on whether they attribute the vision to Job or Eliphaz. We have seen that the dialogue is much richer and more diverse than this allows. In view of all of the above, we can summarize the role of the vision in the original dialogue between Job and his friends as follows: Job, as reflected in his self-descriptions both in 4:12–16 itself and in his later speeches, interprets the vision as a sign of God’s judgment against him, and perhaps even as an act of divine deception, seeking his destruction. He infers from its ambiguous message that God will not accept human righteousness, but destroys indiscriminately. None is safe from the threat of sudden death, for none can withstand God’s power and scrutiny. On the basis of Job’s equally firm conviction that he has done nothing so serious as to warrant God’s enmity, Job concludes that God is not only unjust and capricious, but actively hostile and cruel. Accusing God of intentionally persecuting the innocent while supporting the wicked, he settles on the desperate gambit of a lawsuit against God himself. Maintaining his innocence to the end, but convinced that God has already condemned him, Job rejects all of his friends’ suggestions that he turn to God in repentance, repudiates their traditional belief that the righteous will never perish, and “takes his skin in his teeth” to demand a direct response from God himself. Meanwhile Job’s friends, so often vilified and dismissed, appear much more consistent and sympathetic when they are not tied to the vision. In the face of Job’s subversive conclusions from it, they confidently urge him to trust God’s justice and turn to him for restoration. They maintain this line calmly and encouragingly at first, then with increasing vehemence as Job not only dismisses but mockingly repudiates their advice and the ancestral wisdom it represents. Their insistence that the righteous are preserved and the wicked perish is consistent – too consistent for some readers’ tastes – but it is neither naïve nor idiosyncratic; it represents a widespread and deeply held

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conviction about the justice of God reflected at many points within the Hebrew Bible and beyond. Even Job seems to accept that the world should operate in this way; he has simply lost faith that it does. That is not to say that the friends’ perspective is above reproach. Job’s critiques of the reliability of their paradigm are substantial and largely unacknowledged by the friends. Their occasional attempts to use the doctrine of retribution to explain suffering that has already occurred is also deeply problematic. It is one thing to promise destruction for the wicked; it is something else to conclude that those destroyed must have been wicked after all. The bankruptcy of such a notion becomes especially clear when Eliphaz applies it to Job himself in ch. 22, charging him with grievous sins that Job can by no means have committed. At this point a venerable, if flawed, view of human fate is turned to abuse, yet even then Eliphaz concludes by reaffirming a more hopeful possibility for Job, if only he will accept God’s “instruction.” Further, against the frequent claim that Job and his friends merely talk past one another, we see in their contested reactions to the vision not a repetitive regurgitation of fixed positions, but a heated debate with clear shifts evident from both sides. While Job refuses to deny his own innocence, and becomes increasingly critical of both God and traditional wisdom on its basis, the friends are unwilling to abandon their view of the contrasting fates of the innocent and the wicked, and grow increasingly disturbed by Job’s tone and conclusions. By the time Job begins to expand the scope of his complaint to God’s treatment of mortals generally, in chs. 9, 12 and 14, his tone has become so charged that it is little surprise that his traditionally-minded friends are shocked rather than moved. Instead of allowing Job’s case – or the countless other innocents who have suffered – to undermine their faith, they retrench their position, matching Job’s rhetoric with increasingly dire accounts of the fate of the wicked. Yet the very fact that Eliphaz can shift from encouraging Job in his integrity, to accusing him of wickedness, yet still offer him hope of restoration in both contexts, shows that even the friends’ categories of “righteous” and “wicked” remain more permeable than is generally acknowledged. Bildad’s final speech also reflects such a flexibility, conceding to Job’s vision that humanity may indeed be lowly when compared to God’s supremacy, though ultimately dismissing that “whisper of a word.” What the friends never compromise is their belief in God’s justice and their conviction that the righteous are indeed blessed and the wicked cursed. This is their defining characteristic, and both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of their position. In the end, the two sides simply cannot meet halfway, and – if my reconstruction is correct – even their concessions in the original form of chs. 24–27 are only partial and equivocal. Just as Job never succeeds in convincing them of God’s injustice, so they never manage to persuade him of God’s justice. In the end, the friends do fall silent, while

C. Conclusions

271

Job turns away from them to reaffirm his position and make a final demand for a divine answer. His closing monologue sets his current humiliation against his former honor, declares his innocence of any sin that could justify this reversal, and calls on God to prove him wrong. Such a conclusion can hardly have gone unanswered, and the earliest responses have been enshrined within the book itself, which in its canonical forms present an still more complex dispute over the nature of God’s justice than even the original form of the dialogues. In our final chapter, then, it is time to reconsider how this wider framing impacts the interpretation of the vision in the book as a whole, particularly in light of its earliest reception.

Chapter 5

“Now My Eye Sees You” The Vision, the Final Form, and the Early Reception of Job Chapter 5: The Vision, the Final Form, and the Early Reception of Job Introduction

In its larger canonical context, the friends’ insistence that the innocent will be saved but the wicked destroyed is no anomaly, nor is their defense of God’s justice nearly as ham-fisted as is sometimes implied. Together, they draw from a wide range of biblical traditions to encourage, admonish, and finally threaten Job to put his trust in God and abandon his complaint. Yet however noble and well-supported their aim, they eventually descend into innuendo and accusation, and fail in all their attempts at consolation. Job’s speeches and the vision on which they are based represent a sustained challenge to the viability of their traditional paradigm, and despite the partial concession in Bildad’s final speech, they never truly come to terms with it. All those who have defended the vision’s attribution to Job have focused on reconstructing the original form of the dialogue, an essential task that has occupied much of our attention as well. But in the end, the book that we have does not attribute this vision to Job, nor does it unambiguously embrace the conclusions Job draws from it. Not only is his closing monologue answered by both Elihu and YHWH, but the whole poetic core of the book is bounded by a prose frame which presents a very different perspective on Job’s situation. Finally, if the theory advanced in this thesis is correct, the dialogue between Job and his friends has itself been reframed by the reattributions of 4:12–21 and 26:2–14, and the addition of 27:13–23. If these shifts were indeed deliberate, then they are highly significant for the final shaping of the book, and can by no means be dismissed as mere secondary tampering. In this final chapter, therefore, it is essential to situate these moves within the “final form” of the book and its earliest reception. The goal is not a fullfledged analysis of the book as a whole, much less of its reception history, but merely a provisional attempt to trace out how the vision functions in relation to this material, as an invitation to further study. It has already been noted that Elihu directly reinterprets the vision to emphasize God’s justice and challenge Job’s most radical complaints. This implies a discomfort with the role of the vision in the earlier dialogues, and an attempt to integrate it rather than simply rejecting it. But Elihu does not have the last word on the vision either, as the divine speeches, Job’s responses, and

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even the prose frame all necessarily shape our reading of the vision, challenging Job’s interpretation in fundamental ways, and ultimately setting it aside. Each of these portions of the book push back against Job’s complaints of divine antagonism and injustice, and the same is also the case in the earliest interpretations of the book. Apart from at Qumran, where the fragmentary manuscripts of Job (in Hebrew, and in Aramaic translation) mostly reflect a text comparable to MT, every other interpretation of Job through the end of the second temple period shares a pronounced tendency to rehabilitate Job’s relation with God. The character of Job is consistently held up as a model of patience and righteousness, and even used to support the very ideas he criticized in the canonical book. In that context, it should not be surprising that the attribution of so troubling a vision to Job would have proven problematic, and could have led to the kind of secondary reframing that has been suggested in previous chapters.

A. The Vision in the Rest of the Book A. The Vision in the Rest of the Book

Before turning to the meaning of the shifts now reflected in chs. 3–4 and 25– 27, we must first set the context through a brief survey of the role of the vision in the Elihu speeches, the YHWH speeches, Job’s final response, and the prose frame. As we will see, each of these relativizes the vision in distinct but significant ways. Taken together, they leave the vision’s message and purpose even more ambiguous and troubling than they already were. I. Elihu’s Response to the Vision If Bildad’s final speech offers the first true reinterpretation of the vision in the book, it is brief and concessionary, even if we combine 25:2–6 with 26:2– 14. This rereading of the vision in terms of God’s supremacy takes on a much more prominent role in Elihu’s speeches, however, which represent the first broad-scale response to the Joban dialogues. Like Job and each of his friends, Elihu considers God ultimately incomparable, but while he draws from many of the friends’ arguments, he sets them in a new framework.1 As Wilson notes, while Elihu condemns Job more directly than the earlier friends did (outside of 22:4–20), he does not do so on the basis of any past sins that Job may have committed, nor does he use this to explain Job’s suffering. Instead, Elihu condemns Job for his reaction to suffering – his words, not his actions.2 It remains disputed whether and in what way Elihu himself claims to be the recipient of special revelation. Some describe him as a kind of “proto1 2

NEWSOM, Contest, 207. WILSON, Elihu Speeches, 86.

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charismatic,”3 while others insist that Elihu simply claims that all people – not just the ancients or the elders – have a share of God’s spirit and a right to speak.4 Either way, Elihu directly appeals to God’s “spirit” in a way that none of the friends do (32:7–10, 18–22; cf. 33:4), while also clearly seeing God’s word much more positively than Job does. Elihu’s allusions to the vision reflect this, emphasizing its revelatory and disciplinary character. Like the earlier speeches of the friends, Elihu rejects Job’s accusations of injustice and undue divine scrutiny, but he affirms that Job’s vision is a legitimate, indirect means of revelation.5 The pride that Eliphaz and Zophar condemn by dismissing Job’s access to heavenly wisdom (15:7–8 and 20:5–9), Elihu believes is disciplined through such visions (33:14–18), as well as through suffering (33:19–22). Like chs. 25–26, Elihu uses the vision to exalt God, but he does not dismiss it as Bildad does. Instead, Elihu seems to accept that God has spoken to Job through this vision, but insists that he has completely missed the point. Where Job feared deception and unilateral judgment, Elihu sees a well-earned rebuke and a challenge to human pride. From that perspective, even when Elihu alludes to 4:17, he does not reject it, but only Job’s interpretation of it, particularly his complaint that God has become his enemy and spy without good cause (cf. 33:9–11). Elihu’s inversion of the terms of the comparison in 33:12 serves to emphasize God’s greatness, not to repudiate the vision: “But in this you are not right. I will answer you: God is greater than any mortal.” Meanwhile, his attribution of a restatement of 4:17 to Job in 35:2 implies that it is Job who has misinterpreted the vision, seeing it as proof of God’s injustice when he should have seen it as a challenge to human standing: “Do you think this is just? You say, ‘I am more righteous than God [or: righteous before God].” As seen in Chapter Three, Elihu responds by insisting on an absolute contrast between God and humanity (35:3–8), while strongly reaffirming God’s justice (e.g. 34:10–37). That the narrator summarizes the motivation for Elihu’s entire speech cycle in the same way in 32:2 confirms the importance of this point, and the continued centrality of the vision within the dialogues. Whether the Elihu speeches are original to the book or a secondary addition, they presuppose the original attribution of the vision to Job, and offer a sustained response to his interpretation of it. At the same time, Elihu also condemns the friends for failing to adequately “answer” Job (32:3; cf. 32:6– 22), and strongly reaffirms that the righteous are preserved and the wicked destroyed (e.g. 34:11, 22–28; 36:6–9), unless they repent (e.g. 33:23–28; 3

MCKAY, Elihu, 167–171; cf. JANZEN, Job, 217–225; SEOW, Elihu’s Revelation, 253–

271. 4 5

E.g. HABEL, Job, 451; idem, Role, 81–98; CLINES, Job, 2.718; J. GRAY, Job, 396. For a discussion of these allusions, see above Chapter Three, Section B.II.

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36:10–16). As such, Elihu reflects a broader discomfort with the vision’s role in the book, without resolving it himself. For while Elihu suggests a more positive interpretation of the vision’s purpose, the larger framing of the book not only ignores this reading – and Elihu overall – but implicitly challenges it, by denying Job’s sin in the prologue and epilogue. More than that, Elihu’s response is juxtaposed with YHWH’s, whose very appearance invalidates at least one facet of his interpretation of the vision. After Elihu explicitly affirms that God will not answer a mortal, for he has already spoken through such indirect means as visions and suffering, YHWH nevertheless appears. II. The Vision and the Divine Speeches In ch. 9 Job complained that even “if I called and he [=God] answered me, I do not believe he would listen to my voice, he who crushes me with a storm [‫]בשׂערה‬, and multiples my wounds for no reason” (9:16–17).6 With great irony, when YHWH finally speaks, it is from a storm (‫ ;סערה‬38:1; 40:6), but he multiples questions instead of wounds.7 In this, the divine speeches bear a notable similarity to the vision itself. Despite their far greater scope and different genre,8 they share an open-ended interrogative form with 4:17–19, and similarly challenge human standing before or compared to God, without offering any clear explanation of the link between human behavior and fate. The ambiguity in their intent – whether to reveal or condemn, both or neither – also resembles the ambiguity of the vision itself, and it remains sharply contested how and to what extent the divine speeches respond to Job’s complaints, if at all.9 It is not my purpose to resolve these ambiguities, but I ‫ שׂערה‬has often been repointed to mean “hair,” as in 4:15, instead of “storm,” and taken to indicate something slight, in parallel to ‫חנם‬, “for no reason” or “for nothing” (e.g. DHORME, Job, 136, 137; POPE, Job, 72; CLINES, Job, 1.218). This is also possible, but not necessary (MT is maintained here by, e.g. FOHRER, Hiob, 195; HORST, Hiob, 137; J. GRAY, Job, 191). 7 HABEL, Job, 527–28. On the “irreducible ambiguities” of the divine speeches, cf. NEWSOM, Job, 595–97; idem, Contest, 234–258, followed by BALENTINE, What Are Human Beings, 264. 8 Even more than 4:12–21, the divine speeches move well beyond the confines of their formal generic structure. Overall, the first speech in 38:1–40:2 most closely reflects the challenge and questioning format of a disputation, finding its closest parallels in the disputation speeches of Deutero-Isaiah (e.g. Isa 40:12–26; 41:2–4; 44:6–8; CLINES, Job, 3.1087), but many other genres are also invoked (NEWSOM, Contest, 235–36). 9 For instance, HARTLEY, Job, 487, concludes that, “Yahweh ignores Job’s complaints and avoids making a direct response to his avowal of innocence, and, contrary to the friends’ expectations, he does not reprove Job for some wrongdoing.” But he also affirms that “Yahweh comes out of concern for his servant” (487), and that his purpose is to temper Job’s complaint by giving him a new perspective on God’s “gracious” care for creation (487–88). CLINES, Job, 3.1088, also affirms that YHWH “ignores, apparently, all his [=Job’s] concerns,” but sees a more “severe” tone, “not offensive and by no means cruel” 6

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would like to briefly consider how they might impact our interpretation of the vision. We will focus on 40:7–14, as this not only offers the most explicit discussion of God’s “justice” in the divine speeches, but may even allude to Job’s interpretation of the vision directly in 40:8: Will you even impugn my justice [‫?]משׁפטי‬ Will you condemn me that you may be justified [‫?]צדק‬

If the vision suggests that none is righteous [‫ ]צדק‬before or compared to God, Job concluded that this is because God unjustly disregards human righteousness. YHWH reaffirms a challenge to Job’s standing, but unlike Elihu’s use of this language in 35:2, YHWH retains an interrogative form comparable to 4:17, rather than directly accusing Job. This is drawn out in the following verses, which ask Job to take up God’s own power and glory and carry out judgment on the wicked (40:9–13). Is this a mere dismissal of Job’s authority, or might it represent a legitimate charge to assume such a role? The language is ambivalent, and it has been taken both ways. On the one side, many commentators see this and the divine speeches as a whole as a direct challenge to Job’s stature and ability.10 For instance, Habel sees 40:7–14 less as an answer to Job’s complaint than as a challenge to his inversion of roles with God.11 Against Job’s charge that God abuses his power and terrifies him with his dread, YHWH asks if Job has “an arm like God’s” (40:9) and suggests that Job clothe himself “with glory and splendor” (40:10). Against Job’s accusations that God supports the wicked and destroys the innocent, YHWH challenges Job to bring the lofty low and tread down the wicked (40:11–13). The point, for Habel, is not just that Job should leave these things to God, but that the very notion that the world should operate according to strict retribution is untenable.12 Sometimes the innocent do sufbut also “not at all gracious” (3.1089; cf. 1088). By contrast, ANDERSEN, Job, 271, finds a “kindly playfulness in the Lord’s speeches which is quite relaxing,” and emphasizes that YHWH’s very appearance, to instruct rather than to condemn, is the only response Job needs: “That God speaks at all is enough for Job. All he needs to know is that everything is still all right between himself and God. Knowing that, he does not care what happens to him” (269; similarly, GITAY, Failure, 246–49). On the other hand, HABEL, Job, 530–35, finds reflections on a broad range of Job’s claims, even if YHWH does not cite them directly, rejecting both Job’s and the friends obsession with retribution by emphasizing the greater complexity of the cosmic order, in which chaos and death play a necessary role. 10 E.g. HARTLEY, Job, 487–89, 519–520, “Yahweh rebukes Job for the audacity of thinking that he could dispute with God as an equal, but he does not charge Job with committing any specific transgression” (488). CLINES, Job, 3.1092, also sees this as a “deliberate denial” of Job’s challenge to God’s justice (cf. also 3.1180–81). GREENSTEIN, Forensic Understanding, 241–258, suggests that God rejects Job’s accusation by undermining his competence as a witness. 11 HABEL, Job, 562–64; similarly, CLINES, Job, 3.1092. 12 HABEL, Job, 564.

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fer and the wicked are given free reign, because YHWH’s goal is not a rigid retributive system, but a world full of openness and freedom for his creatures.13 Habel sees the rest of chs. 38–41 in the same light: God’s barrage of questions concerning the order of creation, and his praise of Behemoth and Leviathan, both imply that YHWH has created a world of freedom, in which chaos, death and wickedness are contained but not destroyed.14 By contrast, Balentine finds in these speeches not a rebuke for impertinence or a denial of retribution, but instead an offer of a more exalted role for human beings, as “near equals of God,” who will truly take up God’s rule to establish justice on earth.15 He suggests that the questions in 40:7–14 need not imply a negative answer, but could instead be seen as a genuine offer that Job take up these roles.16 He notes, for instance, that the reference to “glory and splendor” (‫ )הוד והדר‬in 40:10 closely parallels the description of humanity’s exaltation in Ps 8:6[5], “You have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and splendor [‫]כבוד והדר‬.”17 He sees this not as an attempt to put Job in his place, but instead as a response to Job’s own inversion of Ps 8 in 7:17–21.18 Balentine sees a similar intent in the divine speeches as a whole, where the panorama of creation could be seen to minimize humanity’s importance, but the fact that YHWH is essentially giving Job a guided tour of the cosmos suggests the opposite. The point could well be that “Job is a special creature addressed by God and not simply one of many creatures who can be listed in the divine catalog.”19 Similarly, the introduction of Behemoth as the one “whom I made along with you” (40:15) may invite Job to see in this figure of strength and vigor a model for his own relation to God.20

13

HABEL, Job, 564. “Chaos and evil are part of the world; God’s role as Ruler is not to annihilate them, but to keep them in check in accordance with the primordial wisdom principle which governs his cosmic design.” 14 HABEL, Job, 534–35. 15 BALENTINE, What Are Human Beings, 277, cf. 259–278. JONES, Corporeal Discourse, 859–860, reads 40:2–14 similarly. ANDERSEN, Job, 270–71, also emphasizes the great honor that the divine speeches represent. 16 BALENTINE, What Are Human Beings, 268–69. 17 BALENTINE, What Are Human Beings, 268–69. 18 BALENTINE, What Are Human Beings, 269. KYNES, My Psalm, 63–79, does not appear to discuss this potential allusion to Ps 8, though he finds other echoes of the psalm not only in 7:17–18, but also in 15:14, 19:9 and 25:5–6. Kynes suggests that Job’s own inversions of the psalm implicitly appeal for God to restore the exalted status it describes; in that light, an allusion in 40:10 might be read as an offer to do just that. 19 BALENTINE, What Are Human Beings, 265. 20 BALENTINE, What Are Human Beings, 269–274, following GAMMIE, Behemoth and Leviathan, 217–231. Cf. also JONES, Corporeal Discourse, 854–863.

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Habel’s and Balentine’s readings both go beyond what the text actually says,21 but the very fact that both are plausible inferences demonstrates that the ambiguity and open-endedness seen in the dialogues do not disappear when YHWH finally speaks.22 In that light, the relation between the divine speeches and the vision is also ambiguous. If Habel is correct, YHWH essentially reaffirms the challenge leveled in 4:17–19b, denying both human standing before God and the friends’ dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked. By contrast, if Balentine is correct, YHWH rejects the vision’s pessimistic account of humanity’s standing, countering it with a much more exalted image. In both cases, YHWH rejects Job’s conclusion that the vision demonstrates God’s antagonism, but the first implies that the vision’s message is correct, while the second may confirm that it is deceptive.23 On both readings, YHWH gives no ground to the friends’ insistence that the wicked (alone) are destroyed, but neither does he affirm or deny Job’s conclusion that any can perish. As in 4:17–19b itself, the dominant interrogative form of the divine speeches leaves open a range of possible interpretations. Together with the vision, they effectively frame Job’s debate with his human companions, raising foundational questions about human standing before and knowledge of God, which the book never truly answers. If the vision triggers Job’s dispute over the reliability of God’s justice, the divine speeches bring that dispute to a close without eliminating the tension through any simplistic explanation. III. Job’s Final Response This brings us to Job’s final response in 42:1–6, which is no less disputed and ambiguous than the divine speeches. It has been taken to indicate Job’s humble acceptance of YHWH’s rebuke,24 the retraction of his legal challenge,25 a defiant rejection of God,26 or even as a positive acknowledgement of the

21

For instance, against Habel’s reading, it is far from clear that the divine speeches imply a denial, not only of the fact of strict retribution, but even of the ideal that the wicked should perish and the righteous be preserved. Against Balentine’s reading, it may be asked how the fearsome figures of Behemoth and Leviathan can plausibly be compared to “contenders for justice.” 22 NEWSOM, Contest, 234–258. 23 Balentine does not address the relation of the divine speeches to the vision directly, but he does summarize “Eliphaz’s” low view of humanity in 4:12–21 and 15:2–16, as a point of contrast before turning to that which he sees offered in the divine speeches (cf. BALENTINE, What Are Human Beings, 263–65). 24 E.g. TERRIEN, Job, 1193–94. 25 E.g. HABEL, Job, 578–79; GREENSTEIN, Forensic Understanding, 253–54; MAGDALENE, Scales, 258–59. 26 E.g. CURTIS, Response, 487–511; CLINES, Job, 3.1223–24.

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broader perspective YHWH offers.27 Most admit that the language is equivocal enough that more than one reading is possible,28 so much depends on one’s reading of the divine speeches themselves. Having left that question open, I will again leave open the overall interpretation of this troublesome passage and focus on just two points. First, after 42:3a quotes from YHWH’s opening challenge in 38:2, Job admits that “I have uttered what I do not perceive [ ‫לא‬ ‫]אבין‬, wonders beyond me, which I do not know [‫( ”]לא אדע‬42:3b–c).29 Then in 42:4 he quotes YHWH’s promise to speak and question from 38:3//40:7, and responds that “I had heard you with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (42:5).30 Both of these have been seen as rejections of the kind of knowledge offered in the vision, but from opposite perspectives. First, Harding appeals to 42:3 as counter-evidence to Gruber’s attribution of the vision to Job, claiming that it shows that “Job never has, nor does he ever claim to have, access to divine wisdom.”31 But we have seen that the vision itself was characterized by just such a denial of perception (4:15–16), and Job reaffirms this in 9:11–12, using the same expression ‫ לא־אבין‬as in 42:3. The difference is that in ch. 9 this denial of perception was tied to an accusation of divine antagonism, and did not stop Job from confidently affirming that “I know” (‫ ;ידעתי‬9:2). In 42:3 he no longer claims to “know.”32 This suggests that the divine speeches have brought about a radical change in Job’s stance, even if not any substantive new knowledge. This is confirmed by 42:5, which contrasts what Job has heard with what he now sees. As Greenstein notes, Job here invokes the first and last body parts used to describe the vision – the ear and “my eye” – but he sets them against one another in an opposite manner to 4:12–16.33 Job had earlier said 27

E.g. BALENTINE, What Are Human Beings, 274–78. E.g. NEWSOM, Job, 627. 29 Most translations render the verbs in the past tense here, but they are imperfects, so a present tense reading is entirely possible. 30 As CLINES, Job, 3.1206, notes, the first colon is most often translated “I had heard of you…” (e.g. NRSV, HABEL, Job, 575; J. GRAY, Job, 486), but such a sense is only rarely attested with a direct object (cf. Exod 18:1; 1 Kgs 5:14[4:34]; 2 Kgs 19:11; Ps 132:6), and never with a person as object, as here. The same form as in Job 42:5, ‫שׁמעתיך‬, also appears in Gen 17:20, which clearly means “I heard you,” not “I have heard of you.” A similar form is also used in Job 22:27, with the same sense. 31 HARDING, Metaprophecy, 533, cf. 532–33, 542–43 n. 29. 32 The two are further linked by the fact that in both, what lies beyond him is now described as “wonders” (‫ ;נפלאות‬9:10; 42:3; cf. also 5:9; 37:5, 14). Even CURTIS, Response, 509, and CLINES, Job, 3.1206, accept that this means “things too wonderful,” despite their conclusion that 42:2–6 is an outright rejection of YHWH. MORROW, Consolation, 222–23, cf. 211–225, prefers to render it “things too difficult for me.” 33 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 260, FYALL, Eyes, 179, also sees a contrast with the vision here, though he attributes the latter to Eliphaz. Elsewhere Greenstein notes that the same pairing of “my eye” and “my ear” appears in Job’s speech in 13:1, where it may also allude 28

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that “my ear” (‫ )אזני‬received the word (4:12), but even when the “form was in front of my eyes (‫ ”)עיני‬he could not “recognize its appearance” (4:16). By contrast, in 42:5 what “the ear” had previously heard is now dismissed in favor of what “my eye” sees. That Job deliberately contrasts these is emphasized by the way he depersonalizes the former as “the hearing of the ear,” while maintaining the personal reference to “my eye.” In both cases, it is “you” who is heard and seen. This still seems to presuppose the attribution of the vision to Job, who has indeed “heard,” but it also appears to dismiss it in favor of what he now sees. Against the vision’s obscure, mediated revelation, he contrasts the unmediated revelation of YHWH’s appearance. Therefore, while both YHWH’s speeches and Job’s responses are ambiguous, each seems to set aside Job’s earlier accusations that were based the vision. Neither affirms nor denies that the vision came from YHWH, but neither grants it any lasting significance in the resolution of Job’s crisis. Though the terrifying experience recounted in 4:12– 21 forms the basis for much of Job’s argumentation, it never was the answer to his plight. In the end it is contrasted with the no less troubling and ambiguous divine speeches, and Job abandons his complaint. IV. The Prose Tale and the Vision Of course, that is not the end of the story either, at least as we currently have it. This is not the place to enter into the vexed debate over the relation of the prose and poetry of Job, but it remains an open question whether the poet presupposes the prose narrative in something like its current form.34 Regardless, however, the book has been framed in this way in all our extant witnesses, so it would have shaped the interpretations of all readers from an early period, even if not from the beginning. And while there are no certain allusions to the vision in the prologue or epilogue,35 an original attribution of the vision to Job would have raised very serious questions if read in their light. On the one hand, the prologue’s explicit affirmations of Job’s integrity (1:1, 8; 2:3; 42:7–9) seem to demand a positive answer to the question in 4:17 – yes, a mortal can be righteous before, and perhaps even compared to, God – to the vision, but in the opposite manner to how he does so in 42:5: “Look, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood it” (cf. GREENSTEIN, Forensic Understanding, 254, 258). WITTE, Leiden, 177–78, 191; idem, Torah, 63, attributes 42:1–6* to the Niedrigkeitsredaktion, and so also perceives a kind of link between the vision and Job’s final response. 34 For recent reviews of the options, see SYRING, Anwalt, 25–49; HECKL, Hiob, 1–8. 35 Unless YHWH’s condemnation of the friends’ having “spoken to me” (‫ )דברתם אלי‬in 42:7, 8 is meant to allude to and invert the “word to me” (‫ )אלי דבר‬in 4:12a. Note that they explicitly obey what YHWH “said to them” (‫ )דבר אליהם‬in 42:9, and are spared. That the expression should be read as “spoken to me” rather than “about me” is argued by PHILLIPS, Speaking Truthfully, 39–42; cf. also 37–39, and cf. ANDERSEN, Job, 97–98.

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which runs counter to the apparent force of 4:18–19. This confirms Job’s insistence that he has not committed any sin that could warrant the disaster he has suffered, and challenges his friends’ insistence that only the wicked need fear destruction. On the other hand, since only Job’s own piety is affirmed in the prologue, not that of his children, their deaths are not unambiguous disproof of the paradigm. In fact, the friends’ insistence that those who turn to God are restored may even be confirmed in the epilogue. There, Job does appear to submit himself to God, and is restored (42:12–17). The prose epilogue thus offers only uncertain support to the vision’s message and Job’s conclusions from it, which is consistent with the ambiguities that characterize so much of the book’s framing. In fact, the prologue itself highlights this tension through its distinctive repetition of the term ‫ ברך‬to mean both “to bless” and “to curse” (1:5, 10, 11, 21; 2:5, 9). As Linafelt notes, this usage does not seem to be merely a pious avoidance of associating YHWH with a curse, but in fact raises a serious question: What does it actually mean to be “blessed” by YHWH, and what does it mean to “bless” YHWH?36 Despite the prologue’s superficially simple narrative, the repetition of this term challenges the link between righteousness and blessing, much as the vision does, but does not explicitly deny that link. Yet it is not just the vision’s message that is cast into doubt by the prologue; its source is as well. For how can YHWH affirm Job’s integrity and send him – or even Eliphaz – such an apparently terrifying and deceptive challenge to human righteousness? For many, the key to resolving that dilemma has been found in the figure of the Satan. The possibility that the Satan could be the true source of the vision – unbeknownst to the visionary – has been supported by noting the similarities between the challenge in 4:17– 19 and the Satan’s questions in 1:9–11 and 2:4–5.37 Additionally, the visionary’s claim to feel dread in “my bones” (‫ ;עצם‬4:14) and “my flesh” (‫;בשׂר‬ 4:15) could also echo the Satan’s demand that YHWH “Stretch out your hand [‫ ]יד‬and touch [‫ ]נגע‬his bones [‫ ]עצם‬and his flesh [‫ ”]בשׂר‬in 2:5, after which YHWH authorizes the Satan to carry out this attack (2:6). Is the vision itself an aspect of the Satan’s attack on Job’s “bones” and “flesh”? Job, of course, is not privy to the scenes in heaven, so he remains ignorant of these dynamics, and repeatedly attributes his suffering “flesh” and “bones” directly to God. For instance, in 19:20–21 Job complains: My bones [‫ ]עצם‬cling to my skin and my flesh [‫]בשׂר‬, And I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. 21 Pity me, pity me! You are my friends! For the hand [‫ ]יד‬of God has touched [‫ ]נגע‬me. 20

36

LINAFELT, Undecidability, 154–172. Cf. JANZEN, Job, 73-74; SEOW, Job, 389; HARDING, Spirit, 162-63; cf. FYALL, Eyes, 37, 146–47. Alternatively, SMITH, Vision, 163, sees 4:18 as an allusion to the Satan’s role. 37

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Within the dialogues alone, Job attributes both his suffering and his vision directly to God, but if read in light of the prologue, both can be linked to the Satan’s attacks. Yet the significance of such a connection depends greatly on how the Satan’s own role in the prologue is understood. On the one hand, some would see the Satan as nothing more than a servant of God, or even as an aspect of God himself.38 Such a reading is supported by the very parallel between the Satan’s challenge that YHWH “stretch out your hand and touch all that he has” (1:11a; cf. 2:5a) and YHWH’s response, “See, all that he has is in your hand” (1:12; cf. 2:6). As Spieckermann puts it, “Both work hand in hand, because it is the same hand.”39 Despite the Satan’s role, YHWH directly claims credit for Job’s disaster in 2:3, and the human characters also blame YHWH (1:16, 20–21; 2:9–10; 42:11). From this perspective, Job’s conclusion from the vision is apparently correct: YHWH is indeed ultimately responsible for the disaster that befalls him, confirming the hints of divine antagonism seen in the vision itself. God has turned against Job, and this despite his innocence. On the other hand, many see the Satan not only as Job’s adversary, but as God’s.40 They note that the verb ‫( יצב‬Hitp.) used to introduce the Satan and the “sons of God” in 1:6 and 2:1 can refer simply to standing before a superior (e.g. Zech 6:5), but most often it refers to standing against someone as an adversary.41 For instance, the angel of YHWH “stood against” (‫ )יצב‬Balaam “as his adversary” (‫ )לשׂטן‬in Num 22:22. That the sons of God and the Satan (‫ )השׂטן‬stand against YHWH himself in Job 1–2 allows a similarly antagonistic sense.42 This is supported by the ultimate stakes of the test, as the Satan sets them out in 1:11 and 2:5. This is no mere friendly “wager”; the Satan’s phrasing seems to reflect an implicit curse upon either the Satan or YHWH himself, which is contingent upon how Job responds to his suffering.43 According to 38

The first is emphasized by, e.g., HANDY, Authorization, 107–118, and OBLATH, Job’s Advocate, 189–201. The latter is suggested by MAAG, Hiob, 73, and SPIECKERMANN, Satanisierung, 431–436. 39 SPIECKERMANN, Satanisierung, 435, “Beide arbeiten Hand in Hand, weil es sich um dieselbe Hand handelt.” 40 E.g. DAY, Adversary, 79–83; FYALL, Eyes, 36–37, et passim; MAGDALENE, Scales, 99–126. 41 In Job 33:5, Elihu uses the term to describe a legal confrontation: “Answer me, if you can; set [your words] before me; take your stand [‫]יצב‬.” Similarly hostile uses of the term include Exod 8:16[20]; 9:13; Deut 7:24; 9:2; 11:25; Jos 1:5; 1 Sam 17:16; 2 Sam 23:12//1 Chr 11:14; 2 Chr 20:6, 17; Ps 2:2; 94:16; Jer 46:4, 14; Hab 2:1. The use with the preposition ‫ על‬supports this, as it is regularly used to indicate opposition, e.g. in Job 6:28; 7:12; 9:8, 26, 34; 16:4, 9, 10, 13, 14; 19:11, 12; 20:25; 21:9, 27; 30:15; 31:9, 21, 38; 33:10. This usage is stressed by MAGDALENE, Scales, 103–4. 42 MAGDALENE, Scales, 103. 43 Cf. LINAFELT, Undecidability, 164–65; MAGDALENE, Scales, 106. Due to the ambiguity of both ‫ אם־לא‬and ‫ברך‬, 1:11b and 2:5b could be read as a declaration, “Surely

A. The Vision in the Rest of the Book

283

Day and Magdalene, the Satan is not just challenging Job’s righteousness, but also God’s, calling his entire management of the cosmos into question. In principle, the vision is compatible with either reading. If the Satan is God’s faithful servant, then an identification with the “spirit” in 4:15 would create a picture quite similar to 1 Kgs 22, where YHWH himself commissions the “spirit of falsehood.” By contrast, if the Satan is seen as YHWH’s adversary, then other options are available: The spirit in 4:15 could still be identified with the Satan, and its apparently deceptive message contrasted with the divine speeches. Or the spirit could be identified with YHWH himself (or some other of his servants), in which case YHWH is apparently directly responsible for deceiving Job, despite Job’s innocence. All of these possibilities are left open by the final form of the text, which never explicitly identifies the “spirit” in 4:15. What is most significant, however, is that all of these options would have disturbing consequences for our interpretation of the dialogues as a whole. If this vision is from the Satan – whether seen as God’s servant or not – then the fact that it forms the basis for Job’s own accusations of God would be stunning. But if the vision is from God – whether mediated by the Satan or not – then all its hints of divine deception and antagonism would appear to support Job’s accusations. It is not impossible that just such an ambiguity may well have been intended from the beginning, for as Spieckermann notes, many of the very passages that we have seen to reflect on the vision’s imagery also attribute to God the very roles assigned to the Satan in the prologue: to spy out human sin, and to destroy the innocent.44 Whether the vision is attributed to God, the Satan, or both, Job’s reception and use of it either presupposes or confirms his belief that God has become his enemy. Any of these would be consistent with Job’s own portrayals of his relation to God elsewhere in the dialogues, but they all stand in strong tension with the unambiguous affirmations of Job’s integrity at the beginning and end of the book. Job is declared “blameless and upright, a man who fears YHWH and [‫ ]אם־לא‬he will curse [‫ ]ברך‬you to your face,” or as a condition with implicit consequence: “If [‫ ]אם־לא‬he does not curse/bless [‫ ]ברך‬you to your face [may something horrible happen to you/me].” ‫ אם־לא‬can be used to mean “surely” (e.g. Job 17:2; 22:20; 31:36), but it often introduces the protasis of a curse or a threat (e.g. Gen 42:37; 43:9; 44:23, 32; Exod 4:8, 9; Num 5:19; Deut 11:28; 28:15, 58; 2 Sam 19:14; Job 31:20, 31; Ps 7:13[12]; 137:6; Isa 7:9; Jer 26:4; 42:5; Mal 2:2). The curse can be directed at the speaker (e.g. Gen 43:9), or more often at the hearer (e.g. Deut 11:26–28). In that light, the Satan’s challenge may be more than just a denial that Job will bless YHWH; it may grant Job’s decision to bless or curse YHWH ultimate significance – YHWH (or the Satan) truly will be blessed or cursed. 44 SPIECKERMANN, Satanisierung, 436–444; he emphasizes especially 7:16–21 and 9:15–23, though he does not link these specifically to the vision. The latter is also linked to the prologue by the distinctive term ‫חנם‬, used to describe Job’s suffering in 2:3 and 9:17 (cf. also 1:9). The similarity between 19:20–21 and 2:5 points in the same direction.

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turns away from evil” (1:1, 8; 2:3) and reaffirmed as having spoken “what is right” (42:7). He is also explicitly described by YHWH as “my servant” at both the beginning and end (1:8; 2:3; 42:7–8). Though it is entirely possible that the Joban poet deliberately played off those ambiguities in crafting the dialogues, it is not difficult to imagine an early reader who found the tension too great, and sought to reduce it – not by denying Job’s integrity, but instead by eliminating the most damning evidence of Job’s opposition with God. In fact, we need not imagine, for as we will now see, that is precisely what we find in the earliest reception of the book. Again and again, Job is portrayed as a model of patience and trust in God’s justice, while indications of opposition between him and God are routinely reduced or eliminated. In that context, the reframing of the dialogues that we have traced in chs. 3–4 and 25–27 not only makes sense, but provides a crucial bridge from the subversive canonical book to its traditional reception.

B. Reframing the Vision: The Earliest Reception and the Final Form of Job B. The Earliest Reception and the Final Form of Job

If my reconstruction of the original position of the vision in ch. 3 is correct, then at some point after the composition of the Elihu speeches (or at least of chs. 32–35), but before the translation of the Old Greek, someone shifted the vision itself to its current location in Eliphaz’s speech, attributed the bulk of Bildad’s final speech to Job, and inserted the material in 27:13–23. The result was to leave the whole dialogue between Job and his friends framed by two radical inversions of their perspectives. These shifts are too specific to be coincidental, but what they mean for our understanding of the final form of the book warrants deeper exploration in light of its earliest reception. In Chapter Three I suggested two factors that could have motivated this series of shifts: to obscure Job’s own reception of so troubling a vision – with its apparent indications of divine deception and condemnation – and to soften Job’s most extreme repudiations of God’s justice. The above review of the canonical form of the book already suggests why such shifts might have been deemed necessary, as both the divine speeches and Job’s response can be read to dismiss the vision, while the role of the Satan and the emphasis on Job’s integrity in the prose frame sit very uncomfortably with the allusions to divine deception and human lowliness in the vision. Elihu’s reaffirmation of God’s justice and condemnation of Job’s impertinence embodies one possible means of resolving the tension, but as we have seen, this solution is granted no significance in the resolution of the book itself. On the contrary, Job’s piety is reaffirmed in the epilogue, leaving the vision and Job’s subversive conclusions still more problematic. In the canoni-

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cal book itself, the tensions remain implicit and open to multiple interpretations, but in the earliest reception of the book, that ambiguity is consistently resolved in favor of the “blameless” Job of the prose tale, not the accusing Job of the dialogues. In virtually every subsequent interpretation through the end of the second temple period, the exact same two shifts identified above are carried even further: Indications of opposition between Job and God are repeatedly reduced or eliminated, and Job himself is attributed positions that he directly repudiated in the earlier dialogues – with no apparent irony. As Seow notes, “apart from the biblical MSS from Qumran, the portrayals of Job in [the Second Temple] period all suggest to varying degrees a more positive view of the character of Job than what we find in MT – Job as patient and steadfast.”45 To see this, we will begin with the least explicit examples of this trend, in the Qumran Targums. We will then consider the earliest outside allusions in Ezekiel, Ben Sira and the Letter of James, which are entirely positive, then see how the OG confirms and supports those portrayals, and finally consider the early retellings by Aristeas the Historian and the Testament of Job. I. The Vision and Job in the Earliest Reception History Beginning with the two fragmentary Targums at Qumran (4Q157 and 11Q10), both stick very close to the MT in overall structure and in their translation of the text itself.46 Even here, some have found indications of a more positive portrayal of Job (e.g. 34:31 and 42:6 in 11Q10), but otherwise they present the same impression as the MT.47 If Theodotion’s Greek translation 45

SEOW, Job, 111. Though 4Q157 only preserves a few words from chapters 3–5, it nevertheless confirms the present attribution of the vision to Eliphaz, followed by 5:1–2, before breaking off. Meanwhile 11Q10 first becomes legible in ch. 17, but it confirms the MT’s arrangement of the second half of the book, including the current transitions from chs. 25 to 26 to 27 (though the end of ch. 27 is not preserved), the inclusion of ch. 28 and the Elihu speeches, both divine speeches and Job’s responses (except 42:3b, which is replaced by a repetition of 40:5), and the epilogue (though 11Q10 breaks off in the middle of 42:12). 47 Noted by ZUCKERMAN, Two Examples, 269–275; SEOW, Job, 116–17. The tendency to whitewash Job is much more pronounced in the rabbinic Targum, which is of uncertain date. It boasts certain elements that could reflect an early core (e.g. the use of Memra with a pronominal suffix to refer to human beings, not just God; cf. 7:8; 19:18; 27:3; 30:20; 34:2), and could go back in some form to the first century (cf. T.Shab 13:2–3; MANGAN, Targum of Job, 5), but it is impossible to fix a date for its final form before the ninth century CE, when it is first quoted (MANGAN, Targum of Job, 5–9). Like the Qumran Targums, the rabbinic Targum for the most part represents a translation of a Hebrew text very much like MT, but it includes numerous expansionistic elaborations – many alluding to biblical history. A few of these serve to restrict Job’s claims about God’s antagonism towards humans in general to the wicked alone. For instance, in 9:13 the Targum adds: “God does not turn back his anger from the wicked; beneath him languish those who strike terror” 46

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goes back to the late Second Temple period, it also closely renders the wording of MT.48 This stands in contrast to all other early allusions to and interpretations of Job, beginning with the references in Ezek 14:12–20. The latter text affirms that “when a land sins against me [=YHWH] by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it… even if these three men were in it: Noah, Danel and Job, they would save only their own lives by their righteousness [‫”]צדקה‬ (Ezek 14:13–14). Whether Ezekiel alludes to some form of the canonical book or to an older tradition from which Job also draws, it is clear that Job’s defining characteristic is seen to be his righteousness (‫)צדקה‬. But the significance of this allusion lies not just in the fact that Ezekiel ignores Job’s accusations (if he even knew of them); it is that he invokes Job’s example in support of a strong affirmation of retribution.49 The point of Ezekiel’s appeal to these figures, which is repeated four times (Ezek 14:14, 16, 18, 20), is that even these paragons of virtue would save only their own lives, while the wicked will on no account be spared. That Job himself has leveled a trenchant attack on that very paradigm is never mentioned.50 This entirely positive portrayal of Job is also maintained by Ben Sira, who refers to him near the end of a long section that praises various Jewish luminaries (Sir 44–50). Of Job, he says only that “he [=Ezekiel?] also mentioned Job, who held fast to all the ways of justice” (Sir 49:9[11]).51 This too omits all indications of opposition with God, but it is intriguing to note that Job appears in a section of the text that is otherwise focused on the prophets – Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Twelve (Sir 49:7–10[9–12]) – directly following a reference to Ezekiel’s own “vision” (Sir 49:8[10]). Is this placement simply due to Ezekiel’s mention of Job, or might it be possible that Ben Sira was aware of a version of Job in which he also experienced a vision?52

(trans. MANGAN, Targum of Job, 38; emphasis his, to show differences from MT). This is not consistent, however. For instance, 9:14–24 are translated more or less literally, even the shocking conclusion in 9:22–24. 48 Cf. GENTRY, Asterisked Material, esp. 494–499. 49 JOYCE, Even If, 119, notes that Ezek 14 emphasizes that “the old principle of individual responsibility is to be operated with unprecedented rigour” (cf. 118–128, esp. 124). On these allusions in Ezek 14, cf. also WAHL, Noah, Daniel und Hiob, 542–553; NOTH, Noah, Daniel und Hiob, 251–260; SEOW, Job, 49–50. 50 Ezekiel’s insistence that such righteous ones would “save neither sons nor daughters” (Ezek 14:16, 18, 20), is consistent with Job’s prose frame, but where Ezekiel affirms this situation as an expression of divine justice, Job vigorously protests it in the dialogues. 51 The reference to Job follows one to Ezekiel, so it is probable that this alludes to Ezekiel’s mention of Job, so SKEHAN AND DI LELLA, Ben Sira, 542, n. 9, 544; SEOW, Job, 116. 52 SEOW, Job, 116, simply takes this as a sign of Ben Sira’s dependence on Ezek 14. Alternatively, Job’s association with the prophets could be based on his experience of the storm theophany.

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James 5:7–11 also associates Job with the prophets as models of patient endurance, and like in Ezekiel, his example is recalled in order to support the very dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked that Job repudiated, though James casts it in eschatological terms: “Indeed we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen what the Lord brought about,53 how the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (5:11). As Davids and Moo emphasize, Jam 5:7–11 cannot be read apart from Jam 5:1–6, which promises judgment on “the rich,” who exploit their workers (Jam 5:4) and “murdered the righteous” (Jam 5:6).54 Christians are urged to be patient like Job and the prophets precisely because they can expect judgment and blessing to arrive with Christ’s coming (Jam 5:7–11). Such an account indeed recognizes that in the present the innocent do suffer, but it promises that matters will soon be set to right. James appeals to Job not as a figure who boldly accuses God of injustice and antagonism, but instead to encourage patience and trust in God’s coming justice.55 These are mere allusions. None is focused on interpreting Job itself, only using his example for other purposes. Nevertheless, the clear tendency in all of them is to emphasize Job’s piety and patience, and to omit his troubled relation to God. This does not appear to be a coincidence, as it is also reflected in the Old Greek, as well as the earliest retellings of Job’s life. Though the Old Greek appears to be based on a Vorlage that corresponds to the same overall structure as the Masoretic Text, including the attribution of the vision to Eliphaz and the current shape of the third speech cycle, it is nearly one sixth shorter than MT.56 This is because, while OG sometimes 53

On this meaning of the expression τὸ τέλος κυρίου, see DAVIDS, James, 188. “The sense of the phrase is not that of teleological end, i.e. God’s purpose… but the result God brought about known from the story of Job, i.e. blessing.” 54 DAVIDS, James, 181; MOO, James, 220–21; the latter also notes that this parallels a widespread pattern in biblical literature, seen most clearly in Ps 37, where the suffering are encouraged not to envy the wicked their apparent prosperity, for judgment will soon fall. This is a perspective well at home among Job’s friends, so the appeal to Job’s example in such a context is more than a little ironic. Test. Job 4:8 suggests the same inversion of the characterization of Job, and DAVIDS, James, 187, argues that James may have traditions like this in view rather than the canonical book (cf. also SEOW, Job, 118). 55 DAVIDS, James, 187; MOO, James, 228–29. Test. Abr. 15:15 also compares Abraham to Job, who is described as “the wondrous man” (OTP 1.892); This text is of uncertain date and provenance, but may go back to the 1st C. CE (OTP 1.874–76). Test. Job, which maintains the same perspective much more fully, will be discussed below. 56 We lack any MSS that directly correspond to OG because it was secondarily supplemented by Origin in the Hexapla, apparently on the basis of the more literal Theodotion translation. This fuller text was preserved as the LXX, but we have a good idea of the preHexaplaric text because Origin marked his supplements with asterisks that have been preserved in a number of MSS (e.g. 248, 252) and daughter versions (esp. the SyroHexapla). The Sahidic also translates the shorter text without sigla, but it is unclear wheth-

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translates literally, at many other points it seems to freely abbreviate or even rewrite the text. For instance, the vision itself is translated without abbreviation, but with several notable changes, the most significant being that 4:12a is replaced with an address to Job that has no counterpart in the Hebrew: “But if there had been anything true in your words, nothing of this evil would have befallen you” (OG). The ending in 4:20–21 is also adjusted slightly, bringing it more closely in line with Eliphaz’s position, by affirming that mortals perish “because [παρά + Akk.] they are not able to help themselves” and “because [παρά + Akk.] they do not have wisdom” (OG, emphasis added).57 The tendency toward abbreviation and free translation becomes more pronounced as the book continues. Some of the periphrastic elements seem to reflect nothing more than attempts to eliminate repetition or confusion in the Hebrew, but at a number of points we find more significant shifts, including the reduction or elimination of many of Job’s sharpest accusations of God.58 For instance, where 9:22–24 in MT directly accuses God of indiscriminate destruction and favor to the wicked, OG appears to rewrite this as an affirmation that the wicked are destroyed, and omits the closing accusation: 9:22–24 MT

9:22–24 OG

22

22

It is all one; therefore I say, he destroys the blameless and the wicked. 23 When a flood kills suddenly, he mocks the despair of the innocent. 24 The earth has been given into the hand of the wicked; he covers the eyes of its judges – if it is not he, then who is it?

Therefore I said, “Anger destroys the great and powerful, 23 because the worthless are violent in death,59 but the righteous are ridiculed – 24 for they have been given into the hands of the wicked.”

er this is an independent witness to OG, or merely leaves out Origin’s asterisked material. See ZIEGLER, Iob, 133–151; GENTRY, Asterisked Material, 1–10; DHORME, Job, cxcvi– ccvi; VICCHIO, Job, 1.95–116. 57 Additionally, in 4:13 “fear” (φόβος) replaces both “visions of the night” and “deep sleep,” while 4:16 reads “I arose” instead of “it stood,” and denies that a form was seen. In 4:19b OG reads “we are also of the same clay,” while God’s destructive activity comes out more strongly in 4:19–21. 58 See esp. GARD, Job’s Character, 182–86; SEOW, Job, 112–13; VICCHIO, Job, 1.105– 7. Though some of Job’s more troubling statements are allowed to stand, especially early in the dialogue (e.g. 3:20–26; 6:4; 9:15–21 [softened], 30–31; 10:16–17; 13:24–26; 16:11; 19:8–12, 21–22), many others are substantively rewritten or omitted altogether (e.g. 6:8– 10; 7:8, 15; 9:12, 14, 22–24; 12:6, 20–23; 14:14, 18–19; 16:8, 17–21; 21:15–33; 23:8–16; 24:12, 18–24 [esp. 22–23]; 30:20–23; 31:23, 35–37; 42:11). 59 As noted by SEOW, Job, 565, the Greek lacks a verb here: ὅτι φαῦλοι ἐν θανάτῳ ἐξαισίῳ, the adjective ἐξαίσιος could mean “lawless,” “extraordinary,” or “violent” (LS 582). COX, NETS, 676, thus somewhat freely translates this “because the worthless do exceptionally well in death.” SEOW, Job, 565–66, suggests an inner-Greek error for some form of ἐξαίσσω, “to rush forth, start out” (LS 582).

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In OG, it is not “the blameless and the wicked” whom “anger” destroys, but only “the great and powerful” (μέγαν καὶ δυνάστην), while the reference to God mocking the innocent is replaced by an ambiguous passive expression. The claim that the innocent (not the earth) have been given into the hands of the wicked is retained, but the accusation that God covers the eyes of the judges is omitted entirely, as is the concluding question.60 In short, what was a ringing accusation of God for caprice and injustice can now be read as an affirmation that the powerful are destroyed because they oppress the innocent.61 At other points as well, Job’s accusations are muted or eliminated. For instance, the charge that “you destroy the hope of a mortal” in 14:19c is omitted from OG altogether, and where in MT Job complains that “Therefore I am terrified at his presence, when I consider, I dread him. God has made my heart soft, the Almighty has terrified me” (23:15–16), in OG he affirms: “Therefore I am anxious about him, and when I am admonished, I give heed to him. The Lord has softened my heart, and the Almighty has made me anxious.”62 In these and other passages, not only are Job’s accusations mollified, but his continued trust in God is emphasized or simply read in where it was absent in the Hebrew. By contrast, the friends’ speeches have also been modified and abbreviated in various ways, at times even sharpening their accusations of Job (e.g. 4:6, 12; 15:5–6, 11–16; but cf. 11:6),63 but their insistence that God preserves the innocent and destroys the wicked is generally unmolested.64 This is also true of Job’s surprising repetition of that view in 27:13–20 (though 27:21–23 are missing from OG). Far from reading this as a parody, OG reads the same view back into Job’s earlier speeches. This is made unambiguous in 24:18– 24, replacing the reference to God’s support of the wicked in 24:22–23 with a further account of his wickedness and death. Similar claims are even added to Job’s speeches in ch. 21 and perhaps ch. 12, where they directly contradict Job’s statements in MT. For instance, where in MT 21:17–18 Job challenges the friends’ claims that the wicked perish, in OG he affirms that they do:

60

9:24b–c are both marked with asterisks, cf. ZEIGLER, Iob, 252; COX, NETS, 676. SEOW, Job, 113–14, 566, also concludes that the Greek “seems to have translated in such a manner as to exonerate God” (566). 62 This is interrupted in the LXX by a second translation of 23:15, with asterisks. 63 That part of Job’s suffering involved enduring the insults of his companions was retained, even as Job’s own innocence was emphasized, cf. similarly Test. Job 41. 64 Several depictions of the fates of the righteous and the wicked are translated without serious modification, in 4:7–11; 5:2–26; 8:3–22; 11:13–20; 15:20–35 [though 15:26b–27 are missing]; 22:1–11; as well as 27:13–20 [27:21–23 are omitted]). Though Bildad’s and Zophar’s second speeches and Eliphaz’s third are significantly abbreviated (omitting 18:9– 10, 15–16, 17b; 20:3–4a, 9, 11–14, 20b–21a, 23a, 25c; 22:13–16, 20, 24, 29–30), in all three cases the overall message that the wicked are destroyed but (in Eliphaz’s case) the righteous are blessed, remains the focus. 61

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21:17–18 MT

21:17–18 OG

17

17

How often is the lamp of the wicked put out, and disaster comes upon them? How often65 does he allot destruction in his anger? 18 How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff carried away by the storm?

Nonetheless, the lamp of the impious will also be put out, and destruction will come upon them, and pangs will seize them because of anger. 18 And they will be like chaff before the wind, or like dust carried away by the storm.

What were rhetorical questions have been turned into affirmations, reversing their force. His further charge that the wicked go to their graves in peace is omitted altogether (21:28–33). Similarly, in ch. 12 Job’s one-sided account of God’s destructive activity is also shortened, softened, and perhaps balanced by a claim that God “healed the lowly” (12:21 OG), though Ziegler marks the latter with an asterisk.66 Against the common argument among recent commentators that the shift in Job’s perspective in 27:13–23 is merely ironic, OG reflects a pronounced tendency to read the whole of Job’s speeches in line with that very shift, even where the Hebrew clearly contradicts it. The clearest examples of this trend, however, appear in the two earliest extant retellings of Job’s life, in Aristeas the Historian’s work Concerning the Jews, and the anonymous Testament of Job. All that remains of the first is Aristeas’ brief account of the life of Job, preserved through a quotation that the 4th C. CE writer Eusebius traces through the 1st C. BCE writer Polyhistor.67 The account is not long, but it is clearly dependent on some form of the canonical book, as Elihu is mentioned with the other three friends. This implies that the author knew of the Joban dialogues, but the only hint of them that remains is Job’s response to his friends’ arrival, which reads in full: “he said that even without comfort he would be steadfast in piety, even in such trying circumstances.”68 God is explicitly said to have “tested” Job, and the account concludes: “God, amazed at his high courage, freed him from his illness and made him master of many possessions.”69 All hints of opposition between Job and God are thereby eliminated.

65 Though the interrogative is not repeated in 21:17b–18, it is probable that ‫ כמה‬in 21:17a applies to all of what follows (so DHORME, Job, 315–16; CLINES, Job, 2.511). In any case, the point in context is clearly that destruction does not fall (HABEL, Job, 328). 66 ZIEGLER, Iob, 265; this is one of only four places where Ziegler marks a stich with an asterisk that Ralphs did not. The others are 9:3b, 12:23b and 25:6b (134; cf. 248 and GENTRY, Asterisked Material, 19, who argues for its inclusion in OG [21-22]; followed by COX, NETS, 677 n. b). 67 Eusebius, Prep. evan. 9.25.1–4 (see OTP 2.855–59; SEOW, Job 114). 68 Eusebius, Prep. evan. 9.25.4; trans. OTP 2.859. 69 Eusebius, Prep. evan. 9.25.4; trans. OTP 2.859.

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The most extreme early example of this trajectory is the Testament of Job, which shares the same view of Job’s patience as Aristeas and the other early allusions, but goes well beyond the Old Greek to completely rewrite Job’s dialogue with his friends.70 The Testament eliminates all critical elements from Job’s speeches and recasts him as an entirely faithful advocate of patient endurance in the face of suffering.71 The friends’ speeches no longer contrast the righteous and the wicked, but instead emphasize the loss of Job’s wealth, his physical suffering, identity, and sanity.72 In most witnesses, Elihu alone – explicitly “inspired by Satan” (Test. Job 41:5) – accuses Job of sin.73 As in the canonical book, the three original friends are condemned and ordered to offer sacrifices to be forgiven, but Elihu is explicitly denied forgiveness (Test. Job 42:1–43:17). Job’s portrayal stands in stark contrast. Unlike in the canonical book, here Job amazes his friends not with his challenge to traditional wisdom, but with his assurance that his losses are unimportant, for his true throne is in heaven: My throne is in the upper world, and its splendor and majesty come from the right hand of the Father. The whole world shall pass away and its splendor shall fade. And those who heed it shall share in its overthrow. But my throne is in the holy land, and its splendor is in the world of the changeless one. (Test. Job 33:3–5)74

In line with this shift, when God does appear in a storm, it is not to challenge Job, but to condemn Elihu (Test. Job 42). Perhaps most intriguing, however, is that Job does experience a night vision at the beginning of the Testament (Test. Job 3:1–4:11). After witnessing burnt offerings being made at an “idol’s temple” (Test. Job 2:2) he asks himself, “Is this really the God who made heaven and earth, the sea too, and our very selves? How shall I know?” (Test. Job 2:4).75 He then continues: “One night as I was in bed a loud voice came to me in a very bright light saying, ‘Jobab, Jobab!’” (Test. Job 3:1).76 This “light” announces to him that if he undertakes to “purge” the idol’s tem70 Test. Job was almost certainly composed in Greek, and dependent on OG, probably sometime in the 1st C. BCE or CE. Though Christian editing cannot be ruled out, the text seems to have been composed by and for Jews, perhaps in Egypt (OTP 1.833–34; SEOW, Job, 118–19; VICCHIO, Job, 1.122–130; cf. also HARALAMBAKIS, Testament of Job, though her focus is on the literary character of the work). 71 Cf. esp. Test. Job 26:1–27:7; 33:2–9; 38:1–5; 39:11–40:3. 72 PORTIER-YOUNG, Intertextual Transformations, 239–240, 242. 73 One manuscript (1238, at the Vatican) does attribute an accusation of sin to the friends after 41:1, but this is absent from the other witnesses; see OTP 860 n. a. 74 Trans. OTP 1.855. PORTIER-YOUNG, Intertextual Transformations, 234–35, notes the strong emphasis throughout Test. Job on the heavenly throne. 75 Trans. OTP 1.840. 76 Trans. OTP 1.840.

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ple, then Satan himself “will rise up against you with wrath for battle” (Test. Job 4:4).77 Not only is Job warned of the nature and extent of these attacks before they occur, he is even promised: But if you are patient, I will make your name renowned in all generations of the earth till the consummation of the age. And I will return you again to your goods. It will be repaid to you doubly, so you will know that the Lord is impartial – rendering good things to each one who obeys. (Test. Job 4:6–8)78

If this somehow reflects an awareness that Job – not Eliphaz – experienced a vision at the beginning of the canonical book,79 it completely upends the canonical portrayal of Job. Not only is he told in advance what will happen, eliminating all of the tension that drives the Joban dialogues, but the doctrine of retribution is explicitly affirmed by the divine messenger, and embraced by Job. A more complete reversal of the canonical book can hardly be imagined, and yet this is only the most extreme example of the same trend seen all across the earliest interpretations of Job. Therefore not only does the early reception of the book much more strongly emphasize Job’s righteousness than his accusations, but it also regularly eliminates the indications of antagonism between Job and God. It even frequently uses his example to support the very dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked that the canonical figure repudiated. Though none of these directly attests the specific shifts proposed in chs. 3–4 and 25–27, the Testament of Job does attribute to Job a night vision at the beginning of the story, and both Ben Sira and the Letter of James associate Job with the prophets. Even if these cannot be taken as proof of an original attribution of the vision to Job, they all reflect similar efforts to reframe the dialogue to that which we have also seen in the canonical book itself.80 Though fairly literal translations of Job are also found, at Qumran and later in the book’s transmission history (e.g. Theodotion), the Old Greek and every other early interpretation of the book pushes back more or less firmly against Job’s accusations of divine injustice and antagonism, or ignores them entirely.

77

Trans. OTP 1.841. Trans. OTP 1.841. 79 Which would be surprising given the Testament’s probable dependence on the OG, where the vision is attributed to Eliphaz (on Test. Job’s probable dependence on OG, cf. PORTIER-YOUNG, Intertextual Transformations, 235–36). 80 WITTE, Leiden, esp. 227–29, also emphasizes that the more orthodox image of Job presented by the final shaping of the third speech cycle anticipates such trends in the later reception of the book. 78

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II. The Purposes and Effects of the Vision’s Reattribution In light of all of the above, can it really be an accident that the very points at which the canonical book seems to have been secondarily disrupted also reflect the same issues? The attribution to Job of the friends’ dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked in 27:13–23 is merely the first of a number of rewritings and retellings that attribute such views to Job or use his example to substantiate them. That this contradicts Job’s earlier arguments was apparently not taken as evidence that he was speaking ironically or otherwise mocking the friends’ position. Instead, such views were read back into Job’s earlier speeches or allowed to replace them entirely. Likewise, the removal of the vision itself from ch. 3 and the attribution of a more positive portrayal of God’s power to Job in ch. 26 are paralleled by other omissions and reinterpretations of Job’s most troubling accusations of divine antagonism. It is not implausible, then, that the reattributions suggested in 4:12–21 and 26:2–14 could have been driven by a similar motivation to that which seems to have influenced those later interpretations: to minimize the portrayal of antagonism between Job and God, by reframing his debate with his friends. That the touchstone for these redactional shifts would have been the vision should not be surprising, as it is foundational to Job’s accusations throughout his speeches. Though he voices many subversive complaints, only in the vision are these given apparent support from God’s own messenger. Fullerton already put his finger on the problem, asserting that it is absolutely unbelievable that Job could appeal to the words of an anonymous divine being to criticize God himself.81 But if that is precisely what the original form of the book affirmed, it is not surprising that an early reader might have found that unacceptable, and sought to correct it. The problem runs still deeper: If the imagery of 4:12–16 really does allude to divine deception and a “spirit of falsehood,” which is sent by YHWH himself, then Job’s very reception and dependence on the vision implies that God has already condemned him, precisely as Job complains. Even if it is true that these allusions reflect only Job’s interpretation of the vision, as argued in Chapter Four, the hints that God has turned against him are nevertheless present in Job’s own vision. Worse, if read with the prologue and the later view of (the) Satan as the archenemy of God, these same allusions may have suggested that Job appeals to a vision from Satan himself. In light of the developing picture of Job’s uncommon piety, such a possibility was too troubling to ignore. But the vision also plays too central a role in the book to simply delete, without simultaneously rewriting the entire dialogue as Aristeas and the Testament of Job do. Even the exceptionally free translation of the Old 81

FULLERTON, Chapters 9 and 10, 265.

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Greek does not go so far as to eliminate all of Job’s most troubling accusations, and the final shaping of the Masoretic Text evidences a still lighter touch, reframing and reinterpreting the vision instead of eliminating it. Thus, our redactor appears to have settled on a compromise, retaining the vision but obscuring its attribution to Job, by transferring it to Eliphaz. The purpose of the further shifts in chs. 25–27 were meant to support this, further obscuring Job’s reception of the vision by attributing to him Bildad’s dismissal of it, and directly inverting his earlier complaints in ch. 9 (26:5–14) and ch. 21 (27:13–23). There is no reason to assume that these shifts are either accidental or ironic; they represent a real and deliberate change in Job’s position, anticipating the further shifts in OG and beyond. But if that was the intent of these reattributions, what was their effect? It would seem that the redactor was not primarily interested in adjusting the friends’ own view of the vision, especially if the reinterpretation in chs. 25– 26 was already present in the original dialogue, and attributed to Bildad. The attribution of 4:12–21 to Eliphaz and the retention of 25:2–6 for Bildad seem to have been meant first and foremost to rescue Job’s position, not to shift the friends’ perspective. But they have had the latter effect as well. Suddenly it is not just Job but also Eliphaz who is credited with disturbing visions from God or his messenger, casting a very different light on all of the friends’ subsequent critiques of Job’s “windy words,” as well as Job’s own echo of this critique in 16:3. The attribution of 4:12–21 to Eliphaz also introduces a stronger tension within and between the three friends’ own perspectives than would have been evident in the original form of the dialogue. For Eliphaz himself, this creates a direct contradiction to his account of the divergent fates of the innocent and the wicked, but it also leaves him appearing as a more flexible – perhaps contorted – figure, who is willing to push beyond the tradition at least at one point. Of course, this also leaves extremely awkward his derisive quotation of 4:17–19 as the “words” of Job in 15:12–16, but it makes still clearer that his critique of Job’s exclusive knowledge in 15:2–8 represents a clash between competing claims to revelation, not just a conflict between revelation and tradition, as some have suggested. We have seen that there are already strong indications of this in the original form of the dialogues – though Eliphaz’s claims to revelation were clearly tied to ancestral tradition rather than new visions – but now it is explicit and brought to the fore, with direct appeals to revelation appearing in each of Eliphaz’s three speeches (4:12–21; 15:9–11, 17–19; 22:21–22). At the same time, this shift brings out the subtle distinctions between the perspectives of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar that we have already noted above. Where Eliphaz explicitly appeals to revelation, Bildad only appeals to the knowledge of the ancestors – even if this is assumed to be revelatory – and only concedes anything to the vision at the end. Zophar is left even more at

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odds with Eliphaz on this point. Though he too appeals to knowledge “from of old” (20:4), his only usage of the vision’s imagery is to depict God’s judgment on the wicked (e.g. 11:10–11; 20:2–11). If this imagery were drawn exclusively from 4:17–21, that might imply only a reinterpretation of the vision like 25:2–6 does, but since Zophar also describes the wicked with expressions from the visionary’s self-description, this now seems to imply that Eliphaz himself is among the wicked, and not just Job. Indeed, the subversive elements in 4:12–16 itself, no matter how out of place on Eliphaz’s lips, now seem to support that charge, anticipating Eliphaz’s explicit condemnation at the end of the book (42:7–9). Finally, the transfer of this material to its present locations introduces into the book a much stronger commonality between Job and his friends than their rhetoric would otherwise suggest. Not only is Eliphaz credited with a vision comparable to those Job complains about in 7:11–21, but Job himself repeatedly builds on the imagery of “Eliphaz’s” vision. Job apparently finds in it a major key to the interpretation of his suffering, even though Eliphaz himself merely repudiates the vision’s message and Job’s conclusions from it. Meanwhile, if we can no longer assume that the attribution of 27:13–23 was intended as parody, then its emphasis on God’s just judgment of the wicked implies that even Job’s harshest accusations can be read – in the canonical form – as preambles to a renewed appeal for God to turn and take up the cause of justice. The result was a decisive step toward the later reception of the book, but also a dramatic shift in the character of the dialogue itself. Therefore, even if the secondary attribution of this material does reframe the portrayals of Job and Eliphaz, in many ways this only deepens the tensions inherent to their dialogue. The final form of the book offers us a much more complex and multifaceted dispute over the nature of God’s justice and the legitimacy of various sources of knowledge than the original form of the dialogue would have involved. Ultimately, a full appreciation of that complexity depends on an understanding of both the synchronic and diachronic development of the book. On the one hand, only by recognizing that the vision was originally attributed to Job can we appreciate the foundational role it plays in his speeches, and see that the friends’ responses are not nearly as self-contradictory as they appear in the present form of the text. On the other hand, only by taking seriously the intentional reshaping of the dialogue into its present form can we see the transition from the canonical book to its later reception as a natural trajectory rather than a radical disjunction. The tension between accusation and faith may threaten to pull the book apart at the seams, but it also situates it within a larger tradition in which the problem of injustice is no less pressing, yet never allowed the last word.

Conclusions Conclusions Conclusions

One of the clearest trends in recent scholarship on Job has been to downplay its compositional history in favor of its final form and subsequent interpretation. Pushing back against older tendencies to chop the text into disconnected fragments or to privilege its “authorial intent” over its later use, several recent commentaries dismiss the significance of the book’s diachronic development to its subsequent interpretation. Many recent monographs, especially in English, have followed suit, reflecting a growing recognition across the discipline that the meaning of texts like Job is fluid and open-ended, due to their own inherent ambiguity and the diverse contexts in which they have been read. The processes by which the text itself arose are, it is alleged, largely irrelevant to an appreciation of its canonical form and reception. Yet more is lost in this dismissal of compositional development than is generally admitted. Not only does it risk too quickly harmonizing the tensions inherent to the text, but even its apparent greatest values – the emphasis on literary shaping and reception history – are impoverished by flattening the text into a single layer. What tends to be overlooked is how the very processes of reinterpretation so evident in the reception of these texts have also played a central role in shaping them. The transition from composition to reception is much more dynamic than a focus on the “final form” admits.1 The visionary account in Job 4:12–21 amply attests to this. Its complex roles in the development of the dialogues well-illustrates the importance of attending to both the synchronic and diachronic aspects of its composition. For only when we do so can we recognize in this troubling text and its divergent impact a consistent pattern and not simply a jumble of contradictions. In the canonical form of the book, the vision is attributed to the first of Job’s friends, Eliphaz, standing near the center of his first speech. But the vision’s juxtaposition of diverse revelatory motifs and subversive conclusions are unprecedented within the friends’ speeches, and have led to a range of conflicting interpretations. Among those who emphasize the canonical form, the vision’s unusual nature has either been dismissed and its message harmonized with Eliphaz’s broader theology, or emphasized and allowed to color 1 For a similar perspective, cf. the excellent new monograph by BREED, Nomadic Text, which came to my attention after this book as completed.

Conclusions

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his whole speech with a kind of self-parody. Meanwhile, those who focus on the diachronic background to the text have either concluded that it must be a late addition to the book or dismissed its current position as accidental. Each of these approaches recognizes important aspects of the complex role of the vision within the book, but none of them adequately accounts for their full range, and their insights have never been integrated. This is due in part to a wider divide between Anglo-American, German and Israeli scholarship on the book. There are major differences in how the text is approached in each of these contexts, and not nearly enough dialogue between them. This thesis is an attempt to bridge those gaps, integrating what is too often held apart: the mutual interdependence of the book’s diachronic and synchronic development, and the insights of diverse scholarly approaches to it. I argue that the compositional history, literary shaping, and earliest reception of Job are thoroughly intertwined, and that the uncanny vision in Job 4 plays a much more central role in all of them than has generally been recognized. This account of a supramundane visual experience followed by an apparently revelatory “word” resembles many other visions in the Hebrew Bible, but its imagery is unusually allusive and ambivalent, twisting a range of prophetic tropes in troubling and subversive ways. The visionary receives “a word to me,” using an expression common in Jeremiah and other prophetic books, but here the word is “stolen,” and he only receives a “whisper” of it. He experiences “visions of the night,” much like the patriarchs, but they bring him “troubling thoughts” and bone-shaking “dread.” A “spirit” passes before him, but he does not recognize it. There is “silence,” then a “voice,” perhaps recalling Elijah’s experience in 1 Kings 19, yet here the voice is unidentified. In fact, the whole vision is anonymous. The text does not deny that the vision comes from God, but neither does it directly affirm it. This ambiguity appears deliberate, and could reflect the poet’s intent to undermine the legitimacy of the vision. Harding and Hamori note that it may allude to a tradition seen in 1 Kings 22 and elsewhere in which God sends an anonymous “spirit” against particular people with the specific intent to deceive and destroy them.2 Since the vision is attributed to Job’s friend Eliphaz in the text as we have it, it is commonly taken to anticipate his condemnation at the end of the book, in 42:7–9. Like the false prophets, Eliphaz believes he is passing along a revelatory word, but he is deceived. But as Tur-Sinai recognized nearly a century ago, Eliphaz nowhere else reports such experiences.3 In fact, he explicitly rejects them, as do Job’s other friends Bildad and Zophar. For instance, the visionary’s emphasis on his own “dread” in 4:14 is unprecedented among the friends, who only use such lan2 3

HARDING, Spirit, 137–166; idem, Metaprophecy, 523–547; HAMORI, Spirit, 15–30. TORCZYNER, Hiob, 10–14; TUR-SINAI, Job, LII, 88–91.

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guage to describe the terrors that assail the wicked, and the dread that befalls Job, never to describe themselves. In the very speech where the vision appears, Eliphaz dismisses Job’s fear in 4:5–6, and promises that he “will not fear” if he accepts God’s discipline, in 5:21–22. For Eliphaz to describe his own fearful vision thus directly contradicts the argument in which it appears. No less surprising is the message the vision introduces in 4:17–21. It first challenges human righteousness before or compared to God, then asks: If God does not even trust his own servants, how much less lowly human beings? Most significantly, it concludes that anyone can suddenly perish. In a series of violent images, 4:19–21 declares that mortals without distinction are crushed, destroyed, perish, pulled up and die. The problem is that Eliphaz directly repudiates this conclusion in the passage immediately preceding the vision, insisting that the righteous do not perish, while the wicked cannot escape (4:7–8). He then reaffirms the same contrast at length in ch. 5, cursing the “fool,” but promising that God saves the lowly. The other friends argue similarly throughout the first two speech cycles, insisting again and again on the same dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked that the vision directly challenges. Because of this, Witte and others have argued that the vision simply cannot be an original part of the book; it must have been added at a later stage of its redaction history.4 He notes that 4:12–21 is closely linked to 15:11–16 and 25:2–6, both of which also stand out from their contexts for a variety of reasons. He concludes that all three were added in the same secondary redactional layer, and cannot be taken to reflect the original views of the friends. But as out of place as the vision is on Eliphaz’s lips, its style and conclusions are by no means confined to these three passages. They correspond exactly to Job’s own mode of expression, and form the basis for much of his argumentation. This is no subtle proclivity; it reflects a fundamental stylistic, epistemological and theological contrast between Job’s and the friends’ speeches. For instance, while the friends elsewhere only attribute “dread” to Job and the wicked, Job himself repeatedly emphasizes his fear at God’s presence, and even explicitly ties this to terrifying “visions” in 7:13–15. Similarly, the visionary’s repeated use of first-person singular suffixes to refer to “my ear,” “my bones,” “my face,” “my flesh,” and “my eyes” (4:12– 16), is completely unprecedented for the friends, but extremely common for Job. In the rest of the friends’ speeches combined, they only use eleven other first-person singular suffixes, none of which refer to their own bodies.5 By 4

WITTE, Leiden, esp. 91–93, 173–78, 191–92. Eight of these seem to quote or parody Job. This is explicit in 11:4, where Zophar quotes Job: “You say, ‘My doctrine is pure.” It is probable that the seven 1st Sg. suffixes in 20:2–3 are also meant to parody Job. The only remaining examples are Eliphaz’s claim that, in Job’s place, “I would commit my case to God” (5:8), his exhortation that Job “lis5

Conclusions

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contrast, Job uses first-person singular suffixes nearly 500 times, dozens of which refer to his own body. In particular, he refers to these same five body parts using these same five expressions 30 times, while the friends never do so at all.6 For example, the visionary claims to feel dread in “my bones” in 4:14. The friends only use this term once, to describe the suffering of the wicked (20:11), while Job refers to “my bones” four times to complain of God’s attacks (7:15; 19:20; 30:17, 30). Likewise, the visionary refers to “my flesh” in 4:15 to describe his reaction to the spirit’s appearance. The friends never use term “flesh” at all, while Job refers to “my flesh” seven times, most of which are directly tied to his experience of God (e.g. 6:12; 7:5; 19:26). The significance of these contrasts is not just that Job is more likely to speak in the manner reported in 4:12–16, but that it is completely out character for Eliphaz to do so. This kind of fearful, corporeal and theophanic imagery is characteristic of Job’s own experience, while his friends only use it to dismiss and condemn the experiences of others, never to report their own. If 4:12–21 is Eliphaz’s vision, then much of his subsequent argumentation appears self-condemning, as he has already admitted that he has experienced the very terrors that he elsewhere attributes to the wicked. This tension is heightened by the friends’ more direct quotations of and allusions to the vision. Nowhere is this clearer than in 15:14–16, where Eliphaz quotes 4:17–19 at length, but blends its phrasing with key expressions drawn from Job’s own responses to the vision in 7:17, 9:30–31 and 14:1. Though it is generally assumed that Eliphaz quotes this because he agrees with it, it is introduced by an extended repudiation of Job’s claims to exclusive divine knowledge in 15:2–13, which culminates in what is probably a citation formula: “Why does your heart carry you away, and why do your eyes flash, so that you turn your spirit against God, and utter words from your mouth?” That this immediately precedes the quotation of the vision, which begins with an allusion to Job’s words in 7:17, probably implies that Eliphaz himself attributes the vision to Job. The rest of the speech then directly contrasts its conclusions with Eliphaz’s own position, derived from ancestral tradition (15:9–11, 17–35). He even begins the latter account by directly attributing to the wicked three key terms from the visionary’s self-description: “The sound of terrors is in his ears; in peace the destroyer befalls him” (15:21). Not only is 15:14–16 not a positive embrace of the vision, but it is portrayed as a summary of Job’s complaint, which the rest of Eliphaz’s speech challenges. ten to me” (15:17), and his declaration that, “the plans of the wicked are far from me!” (22:18). 6 The expressions ‫אזני‬, ‫עצמותי‬, ‫פני‬, ‫בשׂרי‬, and ‫ עיני‬never recur in the friends’ speeches at all, nor do they apply any other body imagery to themselves, even indirectly. Meanwhile Job refers to his own body dozens of times, and repeats these exact five expressions in 3:10, 24; 6:12; 7:5, 7, 15; 9:27; 13:1, 14; 16:8, 14, 16, 20; 17:2, 7; 19:20, 22, 26, 27; 21:6; 23:17; 29:24; 30:10, 11, 17, 30; 31:1, 7; 42:5.

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The other friends respond to the vision similarly, though never so explicitly. Bildad also introduces an apparent allusion to 4:17 as “the words of your mouth” and “a great wind” (‫ )רוח כביר‬in 8:2–3. In contrast, he appeals to ancient tradition to insist that only the wicked perish in 8:4–22. Zophar also contrasts what appears to be a parody of Job and the vision in 20:2–3 with what is known from of old in 20:4–29, that the wicked are destroyed. Even Elihu uses a near-verbatim quotation of 4:13 to describe the means by which God speaks to Job in 33:15–18, though unlike Job’s friends, Elihu appears to interpret the vision positively, as a means of divine discipline. And while all of Job’s interlocutors seem to attribute the vision to him, Job himself directly appeals to it, and regularly builds on its imagery. The very passage in ch. 7 in which he complains that God terrifies him with visions builds on the vision’s message to accuse God of obsessive attention to human sin. While the friends insist on a clear distinction between the righteous and the wicked, Job alone accepts that God does not consider anyone righteous. This is especially clear in ch. 9, where Job begins his whole speech with a direct appeal to 4:17, then goes on to accuse God of subverting human righteousness and destroying without distinction. Also in ch. 14, Job echoes 4:20 to insist that God “destroy[s]… forever” (14:19–20). In fact, of the five verbs used to describe the destruction of mortals in 4:19–21, the three friends only use them to describe Job and the wicked, while Job uses them repeatedly to describe his own fate and that of human beings in general (e.g. 7:15; 9:23; 14:10, 19).7 When Eliphaz himself blends his quotation of the vision in 15:14–16 with key expressions drawn from these very passages, he confirms that the vision’s message and Job’s complaints are intrinsically linked, and he rejects them together. Throughout nearly the entire dialogue, therefore, the vision and its imagery are repeatedly and unambiguously tied to Job himself. They are used to summarize, parody and repudiate his views, and constantly challenged by his human disputants, who otherwise maintain a consistent dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked. Why, then, does the vision itself appear in Eliphaz’s speech, not Job’s? Tur-Sinai and the few who have followed him have proposed two primary explanations for the vision’s present location. One is that Eliphaz is simply quoting a vision that was originally attributed to Job, but was somehow lost. 7 Job uses ‫ אבד‬from 4:20 and ‫ מות‬from 4:21 to describe both mortals in general (9:23; 12:23; 14:10, 14, 19; 21:23, 25), and himself in particular (3:3, 11, 21; 7:15; 30:23), and he uses ‫ דכא‬from 4:19 and ‫ נסע‬from 4:21 to describe himself (6:9; 19:2, 10). The friends never describe themselves with any of these terms, do not use ‫ נסע‬at all, and use ‫דכא‬, ‫אבד‬ and ‫ מות‬to describe the wicked (4:8–11; 5:2–5; 8:13; 11:20; 18:13, 17; 20:7), to deny that the innocent perish (4:7; 5:20) and, in one case, to accuse Job of having “crushed” the arms of orphans (22:9).

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The other is that the order of the text has been disrupted by some sort of accidental damage, and that originally the vision did appear in one of Job’s speeches. Of these, Greenstein’s version of the latter, displacement theory is the most compelling.8 He suggests that the vision could have originally appeared at the end of Job’s first speech in ch. 3, and that at some early point the scroll on which Job was written could have come apart at the seams, so that 4:12–21 and 4:1–11 could be accidentally exchanged. He appeals to the third speech cycle for support, where scholars have long argued that certain portions of the text have been secondarily displaced and are now attributed to the wrong people. That chs. 25–27 contradict the earlier dialogues is widely admitted, as these chapters disrupt their otherwise consistent speech-and-response structure. In contrast to the first two speech cycles, Bildad is left only five verses and Zophar fails to appear at all, while Job speaks at length even though twice interrupted with new introductions of the speaker (27:1; 29:1). This formal disruption is paired with a stylistic one, as Job at points speaks in a manner that was earlier characteristic of the friends (26:2–14; 27:13–23). Theologically as well, nearly everyone recognizes that the positions Job is attributed in ch. 26 and the second half of ch. 27 stand in tension with his earlier accusations. In ch. 26 he not only draws imagery from chs. 9 and 12 to defend an opposite perspective on God’s power – praising rather than lamenting it – but he even appears to dismiss the vision itself as a “whisper of a word” (26:14), something he never did in his previous speeches. Even more starkly, in 27:13–23 Job directly contradicts his own speech in ch. 21, and even uses the vision’s imagery to describe the fate of the wicked, just as the friends had previously done. Virtually all scholars admit that these passages cannot simply be harmonized with Job’s viewpoint, so those who prefer to focus on the final form typically conclude that Job is imitating his friends in a kind of parody. This is unlikely, however, as neither 26:2–14 nor 27:13–23 shows any sign of the irony and subversion that characterize Job’s other speeches, even in ch. 24 and 27:2–12. That these anomalous passages form the conclusion to Job’s entire dialogue with his friends is also highly significant, but too often ignored. Where Tur-Sinai, Greenstein and others conclude that these inversions of perspective in ch. 4 and in chs. 25–27 are accidental byproducts of secondary disruption, I argue that they are much more tightly and intentionally linked than this allows. The speeches in chs. 25–27 are not just disordered, but directly invert the consistent treatment of the vision elsewhere in the book. In particular, Bildad’s brief speech in ch. 25 is the only place outside 4:12–21 where one of the friends echoes the vision’s language without critique. 8

GREENSTEIN, Extent, 245–262.

302

Conclusions

Meanwhile, in 26:2–14 and 27:13–23 Job himself speaks in a manner that was earlier characteristic of the friends, apparently dismisses the vision itself in 26:14, and directly contradicts his earlier accusations of divine injustice. The extent to which these inversions mirror those surrounding 4:12–21 seems to have been overlooked, even by those who link the two anomalies: In ch. 4, Eliphaz is attributed a vision that directly corresponds to Job’s perspective, while undermining everything else the friends say except in ch. 25. Meanwhile, in chs. 26–27 Job dismisses the vision that is only linked to the friends in ch. 4, and reverses his own core conclusions from it. This strongly implies that the these inversions are deliberate, and there is a great deal of evidence that they are also secondary, disrupting what would have originally been a much more straightforward structure within both chs. 3–4 and 25–27. Such diachronic explanations have fallen out of favor in recent Englishlanguage studies on Job, but several lines of evidence support seeing the present order of the text as a product of deliberate displacement. First, in at least two of the three anomalous passages – 4:12–21 and 26:2–14 – the problematic material is not just reminiscent of the opponents’ views, but disrupts its current context and directly links to the immediately preceding speech. This is clearest in ch. 26, which forces Job to speak twice in a row (introduced in 26:1 and 27:1), and seems to provide the frame missing from Bildad’s currently fragmentary final speech in ch. 25. While 26:2–4 closely reflects the friends’ style of address, not Job’s, 26:5–14 maintains the same perspective on God’s sovereignty as 25:2–6, and completes its argument. Due to such connections, even those who normally eschew diachronic reconstructions generally conclude that in ch. 26 Job “finish[es] Bildad’s speech for him.”9 It is more likely, however, that all this was originally Bildad’s speech, secondarily disordered. In the case of ch. 4, Witte notes that the vision disrupts the parallel between 4:7–11 and 5:1–5, and unbalances the whole speech with its extended first-person account.10 Without the vision, Eliphaz’s speech is a clear and consistent exhortation that Job “seek God,” for the wicked and the fool will surely perish while the innocent and the lowly will be preserved. Witte concludes that the vision must also be a secondary addition to the book, but the fact that Eliphaz directly responds to its message in the rest of the speech leaves this unlikely. Instead, as Greenstein recognizes, it seems to have been displaced from Job’s immediately preceding speech.11 Though Job’s opening lament in ch. 3 is not as truncated as Bildad’s final speech, it is shorter than any of Job’s other speeches, and directly parallels all of the details that set the vision apart from ch. 4, including its extended first9

BALENTINE, Job, 382. WITTE, Leiden, 72–73. 11 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 258–260, following GINSBERG, Patient, 105. 10

Conclusions

303

person discourse, body imagery, and fearful tone. An original location in Job’s speech is also supported by the parallel between 3:3 and 4:20, which would have framed the speech as a whole: The first wishes that the “day” of Job’s birth and the “night” of his conception would “perish,” while the last concludes that mortals in general “perish” “from morning to evening.”12 The link between these passages may be further supported by the fact that both closely parallel the “confession” in Jer 20. The indications of deception and condemnation often recognized in the vision parallel and extend Jeremiah’s complaint that YHWH has “deceived” him in Jer 20:7–10, while the curse on the day of birth in Job 3:3–11 parallels and radicalizes the curse in Jer 20:14–18. That the order of the two is inverted from Jer 20 to Job 3* is consistent with the rest of Job’s speech, where he repeatedly gives his reasons only after stating his shocking conclusions.13 Just like the anomalous material in ch. 26, therefore, the vision not only disrupts Eliphaz’s speech, but fits smoothly into the speech that precedes it, completing its structure and clarifying its ambiguities. In both cases, the most plausible explanation is that this material is original to the book, but simply out of place. Further, in both cases an original placement in chs. 3 and 25 respectively would not only clarify the structure of these two speeches in isolation, but also that of the whole dialogue. In the first case, if the vision originally appeared at the end of ch. 3 rather than in the middle of ch. 4, this would have set the stage for the foundational role it plays in Job’s subsequent argument. It also frames the whole poetic core of the book with theophanies to Job, the first from an anonymous spirit, the second directly from YHWH. That both theophanies center on a set of rhetorical questions that challenge human standing before God, and serve to relativize the friends’ dichotomy between the fates of the righteous and the wicked, was also presumably intentional, even if the precise relation between the vision and the divine speeches must remain open-ended. This is further supported by the apparent allusion to 4:17 that begins the second divine speech in 40:8, and by the inversion of 4:12–16 in Job’s response in 42:2–6. Likewise, an original attribution of chs. 25–26* to Bildad would mean that the final speech of the friends is not just one more response to Job’s vision, but one that takes a distinctly different stance toward it than that maintained throughout chs. 4–22. Here alone, Bildad concedes the lowliness of humanity that the vision affirmed, and reframes it in praise of God’s supremacy, subtly eliminating the vision’s more subversive elements – especially God’s condemnation of “his servants” and the conclusion of indiscriminate destruction – yet framing the whole with a final dismissal of this “whisper of a word.” Immediately following Job’s speech in ch. 24, which similarly concedes to 12 13

GREENSTEIN, Extent, 260. Cf. GREENSTEIN, Extent, 259.

304

Conclusions

the friends that the wicked eventually pass away, but subtly implies that God supports them in the meantime, such a speech in chs. 25–26* could reflect a dialogue-ending strategy that has often been noted in Job’s closest generic parallel, the Babylonian Theodicy.14 In the latter text, the sufferer and his friend each concede something to the other’s perspective in their final speeches, without abandoning their own viewpoints. If the vision was indeed originally attributed to Job, then Bildad’s admission of human lowliness provides the missing counterpart to Job’s admission that the wicked perish. This brings Job’s dialogue with the friends to a close, leaving him free to restate his own position positively in chs. 29–31, and setting the stage for the divine speeches, whether originally preceded by Elihu or not. Therefore the entire poetic core of the book makes most sense if the vision was indeed the original conclusion to Job’s opening lament, not an ambiguous digression in the middle of Eliphaz’s response, and the similar displacement evident in ch. 26 mirrors and confirms that shift. But what then of the anomalous material in 27:13–23? For it to have been transferred from the immediately preceding speech as in the other two cases, we would have to assume an original third speech of Zophar of which we have no overt evidence.15 That is of course possible, but the near verbatim parallel between 27:13 and the last verse of Zophar’s second speech (20:29) raises other possibilities. The first is that 27:13-23 could have originally followed 20:28, and that 20:29//27:13 was repeated when the passage was transferred to Job’s speech. Such a possibility may be supported by the close correspondence of style and message between ch. 20 and 27:13–23, and by the fact that several statements made in 27:13–23 are directly contradicted by Job himself in ch. 21 (cf. e.g. 27:14 with 21:8, and 27:20 with 21:18). Just as Eliphaz’s challenge to the vision’s conclusions makes more sense as a response to Job’s speech than as a frame for his own vision, it is easier to imagine Job repudiating these images in response to Zophar than in anticipation of him. There are difficulties with such a theory, however. First, it would mean that Zophar’s second speech was originally 39 verses long, the longest of any of the friends’ speeches since Eliphaz’s first. The reference to the contrasting fate of “the righteous” in 27:17 would also be unique in the second speech cycle, where the friends otherwise focus exclusively on the fate of the wicked. Finally, the repetition of 20:29 in 27:13 is unparalleled in the other proposed disruptions, and suggests a different modus operandi than the simple displacements seen in chs. 3–4 and 25–26. There is another possibility, however: that 27:13–23 is indeed a secondary addition, as Witte and others suggested, but that it was added to the end of the 14 15

Cf. HABEL, Job, 355–58; NEWSOM, Contest, 81, 164. As concluded by, e.g., HABEL, Job, 383–87.

Conclusions

305

dialogue in order to complement and complete the preceding displacements. The application of the vision’s language to the wicked alone, and the reaffirmation of the friends’ dichotomy between the wicked and the righteous are in that case part and parcel of the very same shifts implied by the attribution of the vision itself to Eliphaz, and of ch. 26 to Job. Either way, however, the present conclusion to ch. 27 is unlikely to be an accident. At the very least, the repetition of 20:29 in 27:13 implies a degree of redactional activity, and the repeated introductions of Job in 26:1, 27:1 and 29:1 support that suspicion. Whereas Tur-Sinai and Greenstein appeal to accidental damage to explain these anomalies,16 the locations of these passages at the beginning and end of Job’s dialogue with his friends, and the manner in which they directly mirror one another, are too tightly integrated to be coincidental. It is much more likely that they were all intended to reframe the dialogue, by obscuring Job’s own reception of the vision, and reversing his previous use of it to accuse God of indiscriminate destruction. Apart from the composition of 27:13–23, this secondary reframing would have required no more than the relocation of two passages and the addition of one new speech introduction (either that in 26:1 or, more likely, 27:1). That such displacements could have occurred deliberately is supported by comparison with the earliest reception history of both Job itself and the Hebrew Bible as a whole. Both the addition and relocation of significant blocks of text are found in the witnesses to many other biblical books. For instance, Ezek 37–39 in MT appears in a different order in certain early witnesses, and it has been argued that the change of order was both deliberate and linked to certain additions found in MT but absent from those early witnesses.17 In the case of Job’s reception history, though we have no direct evidence of displacements of this sort, we find a strong tendency to rewrite Job’s story in other ways that minimize or eliminate his most subversive conclusions from the vision. For instance, the Old Greek of Job is about one sixth shorter than the Masoretic Text, and substantially revises its dialogue. In this version, Job’s surprising embrace of the friends’ viewpoint in chs. 26–27 is not only maintained without irony, but even read back into Job’s earlier speeches, in chs. 9, 21 and 24. Even more extremely, the two earliest retellings of Job’s life – in Aristeas’ work Concerning the Jews and the anonymous Testament of Job – both omit or rewrite the entire dialogue, eliminating all indications of opposition between Job and God. The brief allusions to Job in Ezekiel 14 and James 5 reflect a similar reading, even using Job’s example to support the very doctrine of retribution that he himself challenged. 16

TORCZYNER, Hiob, V–IX; GREENSTEIN, Extent, 260–62; see also GINSBERG, Patient, 101–7; GRUBER, Jewish Study Bible, 1501–2. 17 Cf. esp. Ezek 36:23c–28; KLEIN, Schriftauslegung, esp. 59–77, 374–378; LILLY, Two Books, 11–23, 301–310.

306

Conclusions

In that light, the manner in which the final Masoretic Text also attributes to Job two straightforward affirmations of God’s power and justice, and masks his reception of the vision by attributing it to Eliphaz, can most plausibly be read as an early sign of that same trend. After all, this subversive vision, with its hints of divine deception and summary condemnation, posed a more direct problem for the traditional view of Job’s character than any of his subsequent complaints, for only here are they given apparent support by a divine messenger. No attempt to reframe Job’s speeches could have been complete without simultaneously obscuring his own dependence on this troublesome vision, but it plays much too central a role in the dialogues to simply delete. Attributing the vision to Eliphaz, while allowing Job himself to reaffirm the friends’ rejection of it, offered a simple expedient, reframing the dialogue and setting the stage for the further shifts in the subsequent reception history. Job’s speeches may still be splattered with the blood of his dependence on the vision, but at least the body has been buried in his neighbor’s backyard. Despite the vision’s present attribution, therefore, nearly the entire book appears to have been composed under the assumption that this was Job’s vision, and even its final framing was probably undertaken with this in mind, and intended to obscure it. This means that a full appreciation of the vision’s role in the book cannot focus solely on its final form. To do so is to miss the foundational role that the vision has played in its development. Yet neither is it reasonable to dismiss the final form in favor of a reconstructed original, as its secondary shaping was no less crucial to the text that we actually have. Only by recognizing both the centrality of the vision to Job’s own argument, and the deliberate attempts to reframe and reinterpret it, can we appreciate the full complexity of the book that we have, without undue harmonization. Only then can we see in the shift from the canonical portrayal of Job to its secondary retellings a natural trajectory, rather than a radical break. On that basis, several common conclusions regarding the role of the vision within the dialogues need to be revisited. Foremost among these is the suggestion that the friends are mere caricatures or foils for Job’s position.18 Though commonly portrayed as self-contradictory, overly-rigid or unsympathetic, their speeches appear in the original form to be both consistent and reasonable. The friends represent a venerable tradition with broad biblical support, and though their refusal to compromise that tradition eventually leads them astray, they are not completely inflexible, as Bildad’s final speech attests. Despite the elevated rhetoric seen on all sides throughout chs. 15–22, the friends appear to be genuinely seeking to correct the distortions they see

18

E.g. WHEDBEE, Comic Vision, 231–241.

Conclusions

307

in Job’s view of God, and to point him toward a more hopeful future. If in the end they are wrong, they are not straw men. Second, both those who contrast the friends’ “religious” language with Job’s “humanistic” stance,19 and those who contrast Job’s appeals to “revelation” with the friends’ insistence on “human” tradition,20 underestimate the complexity of the dispute. This is true no matter where in the book’s development we look. Though Job clearly emphasizes his own corporeal and visionary experience in a way that none of the friends do,21 even in the original form of the book Job’s attitude toward both is deeply ambivalent, and this is all the more the case in its current form. Not only is the vision itself described with dread and uncertainty, but Job’s subsequent reactions to it are also much more critical than Tur-Sinai and his followers have acknowledged. In each of his next three speeches, Job alludes to the vision, but not with “pride,” as Greenstein suggests.22 Instead, he associates the vision with fear and despair in the face of God’s unassailable power and unmerited judgment, and uses this as a springboard to demand a chance to speak for himself. Already in the original form of the dialogue, Job pushes back against the vision’s conclusions in various ways. He challenges its apparent rejection of human righteousness, complains of the dread it invokes, protests its implication that any can perish, and even objects that the wicked do not perish. With the reattributions of 4:12–21, 26:2–14 and 27:13–23, however, Job’s relation to the vision is further compromised. Though his frequent reuse of the vision’s imagery is retained, he is not only attributed a dismissal of that “whisper of a word” in 26:14, but also a direct repudiation of its message in 27:13– 23. If these have been added to his speeches deliberately, they can no longer be dismissed as mere parody: They mark a significant shift in Job’s theology, which will be carried still further in the book’s earliest reception. Other details of his speeches are also cast in a new light now that the vision is attributed to Eliphaz. For instance, where 13:7 appears to have originally served to reject the friends’ reliance on traditional doctrine, it can now be read as a repudiation of the vision itself, emphasizing its deceptive nature: Will you speak falsely for God, and will you speak deceitfully for him?

As for the friends, they too are critical of the vision, but even in the original dialogues they did not consistently reject revelation for mere “human” knowledge. Eliphaz especially ties his own teachings directly to God (15:11, 22:21–22), even urging Job to accept God’s ‫תורה‬. He begins his entire first speech with an allusion to Isa 35:3–4, and follows this with echoes of a wide 19

GITAY, Failure, 239–250; cf. HARDING, Metaprophecy, 523–547. GRUBER, Human and Divine, 88–102; cf. GREENSTEIN, Skin, 63–77. 21 GREENSTEIN, Skin, 75–77. 22 GREENSTEIN, Extent, 248; idem, Skin, 67. 20

308

Conclusions

range of other biblical literature. The same tendency is also evident in Bildad’s and Zophar’s speeches, though neither explicitly ties their teaching to God as Eliphaz does. Both support their rejections of Job’s vision through appeals to primordial times, using language paralleled in Deut 4:32 (8:8–10; 20:4), but Zophar appears most dismissive of the possibility of new revelation (11:5–9; 20:2–8), while Bildad explicitly rejects individual knowledge in favor of that passed down from the ancestors (8:8–10). Only Bildad is attributed a positive use of the vision’s imagery of human lowliness, in ch. 25, but if ch. 26 was originally attributed to him, he again dismissed this. All of this contrasts with Eliphaz’s claims that his own experience confirms what is known from the ancestors (4:8; 5:3, 27; 15:17–19). The final form of the book only deepens these tensions, furthering the contrast between Eliphaz and his companions. In its canonical reframing, Eliphaz’s frequent appeals to revelation and what he himself has “seen” no longer seem to challenge Job’s vision, but to support his own. Meanwhile, Bildad’s and Zophar’s rejections of the vision now appear to be directed at Eliphaz rather than Job, leaving their overall tendency to dismiss present experience in favor of tradition still more stongly at odds with Eliphaz. Yet even if the secondary attribution of the vision to Eliphaz shifts and distorts the friends’ position as a whole, its purpose does not appear to have been to signal their confusion or condemnation. Nearly the opposite in fact: The subsequent reception of the book clearly indicates that the friends’ insistence on God’s just judgment of the righteous and the wicked was generally embraced and brought even more to the forefront. It is not the friends’ dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked, but Job’s challenges to it that subsequent readers found uncomfortable, and the shifts evident in chs. 3–4 and 26–27 more likely serve to limit Job’s challenge to God’s justice than to dismiss the friends’ traditional theology. The end result is a work marked by deep tensions, in which the problem of God’s justice in a broken world is explored from multiple competing perspectives, and no clear resolution is found. Even its final shaping, though it marks an essential step toward the more “patient” portrayal of Job in the book’s reception history, has inadvertently left the dialogue more ambiguous rather than less. Though the intent of these shifts was almost certainly to present Job himself and the friends’ dichotomy in a more favorable light, the result subverts itself. Now both Eliphaz and Job are attributed passages that introduce significant tensions – or even self-contradictions – into their portrayals of God’s justice. Together, these shifts lend the vision’s challenge new life, as it is now affirmed as well as denied by both sides in the debate. The subversive vision has survived all attempts to domesticate it. It continues to trouble the waters even in the book’s final form.

Conclusions

309

It is well that it does. For in later Jewish and Christian theology, this recognition that human righteousness cannot guarantee security has gone on to play no less significant a role than the conviction that God is just and faithful to those who trust him. On one side, Eccl 9:1–3 concludes similarly to Job 4:19–21 and 9:22 that the same fate comes to all, righteous and wicked alike. Such skepticism was not the norm, however, and elsewhere in ancient Judaism and early Christianity challenges to human righteousness are most often found in appeals to or praises of God’s grace (e.g. Sir 18:8–14; 1QH 12.29– 33; Rom 3:10–26). The vision’s conclusion that life is fragile and human nature is weak can hardly be dismissed, but it need not lead to despair. For a God who is not bound to strict retribution is also a God free to forgive the wicked. Job may find the vision’s challenge to human righteousness terrifying, but the development of the book itself demonstrates that more hopeful conclusions are possible. By shifting the vision from the context of Job’s death-wish to that of Eliphaz’s defense of God’s justice, its final reframing may upend the dialogue, but it also facilitates a reassessment of the vision’s significance. Insofar as Job and the friends alike now both affirm human lowliness and divine justice, the canonical form of the book invites us to consider anew how these two poles of human experience might be reconciled. The book of Job itself may not answer that question, but it raises it with particular force. Like a stone cast into a still pool, the vision’s reattribution creates distortions that extend to the farthest reaches of the dialogue, but also adds a liveliness and unpredictability to the debate that have not died away to the present day.

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Source Index Indices

I. Ancient Near-Eastern Texts The Babylonian Theodicy 279–280 Behistun Inscription

54, 198–99, 209– 10, 215–17, 304 1, 198

55

Enuma Elish IV.41 IV.95

186 186

Gilgamesh XI.20–26 XI.36–47

71 72

Dialogue between a Man and His God 199

Legend of Keret KTU 1.14 i.18–19 121

Dialogue of Pessimism

199

Deir ʿAlla Inscription

Ludlul bēl nēqemi I.54 I.49–57 III.8–46

73

54, 199 54 54 54

Man and His God 35, 199 El Amarna Tablets EA 35.13–14 121 EA 35:36–37 121

Meṣad-Ḥashavyahu Inscription 195 Nippur Inscription 158

II. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Genesis 2–3 2:21 4 6:1–4 15 15:1 15:2–3 15:4 15:12–21 15:12

127–28 73 254 90 67, 68, 73–75 67, 70, 73, 75 67 70, 73 67 68, 73–75

17 17:20 18:27 21:17 25:22 25:23–34 26:24 27:1–45 28:10–19 28:13 30:37–31:27

67 279 30 75 231 81 75 81 67, 73 77 81

328

Source Index

31 31:20 31:26 31:27 37:5–8 37:9–10 38:26 40 40:15 41 46:2 46:3 47:13 49:21

246 71 71 71 65 65 88 65 70, 244 65 78 75 92 186

Exodus 3:3 3:18–22 14:1–4 15:16 16:20 16:24 19:16 20:4 20:15–16 20:20 22:6[7] 24:11 24:17 32:25 35–40

78 81 81 75 183 183 76 78 71 75 70 73 78 72, 82 221

Leviticus 19:4 19:11

164 71

Numbers 12:8 22–23 22:7–14 22:18–21 22:22 23:3–5 23:15–16 24:4 32:22

78 73 67 67 90, 282 67 67 73 85

Deuteronomy 2:25

75

4 4:12 4:15 4:16 4:23 4:25 4:32–35 4:32–33 4:32 5:8 5:19–20 6:6 8:5 11:16 11:25 23:2 24:7 28:15–19 28:66–67 30:17–18 31:15 31:16 31:19 31:23–27 32 32:7–9 32:16 32:19 32:21 32:24 32:39

264–65, 267 78, 264 78, 264 78, 264 78, 264 78, 264 125, 261 264 261, 264, 308 78 71 259 252 163 75 94 70 165 75 164 48 48 252 48 252 125, 261 164 164 164 121, 253 252

Judges 4:21 6:23 7:13–14 9:23–24 13:6 21:21

73 75 65 10, 27, 77, 81 78 244

1 Samuel 3:1 3:2–18 3:10 3:15 11:7 16:1–2 16:14–23 16:14

73 67, 73 77 78 75 81 10, 27, 77 80

Source Index 18:10–12 18:10 19:9–10 19:9 26:12 28:13

10, 27 77 10, 27 77 73 250

2 Samuel 7:4 7:17 17:14 19:4[3] 19:42[41] 22:16 24:1 24:10–17 24:11

70 7, 65, 73 81 71 71 186 81 81 73

1 Kings 3:4–15 3:5 19 19:12–13 20–21 22 22:17 22:19–23 22:19–22 22:19 22:20–22 22:20 22:21 22:24 22:34–38

67, 73 84 297 78 221 27, 52, 68, 77, 80, 232, 283, 297 66 10, 27, 67 65–67, 80 67, 80 81, 163 67, 80, 84 77, 80 80, 82 80

2 Kings 2:1 2:11 6:15–20 7:6–7 11:2 19:7

76 76 81 81 71 10, 27, 77, 81, 82

Isaiah 1:1 2:10 2:19 5:9

65, 73 75 75 72

6 6:1 6:8–13 6:8 8:19 12:2 13:10 14:4 14:11 14:12–20 16:13 19:13–14 19:14 19:16–17 21:1–10 21:3–4 22:1 22:5 24:17–18 27:1 29 29:7 29:9–10 29:10–11 29:10 30:10 30:14 33:7 33:10–14 33:14 35:3–4 37:7 38:4 38:12–13 40:12–26 40:21–24 40:26 41:2–4 41:4 41:14 41:20 43:13 44:6–8 44:8 44:11 44:24 45:18–23 46:8–11 48:3–7

329 65, 66, 67, 68, 78 67 81 67, 78, 84 250 75 184 188 130 263 70 10, 27, 81 77 75 67, 68, 75 68 7, 73 7, 73 75 158 81 73 27 73, 82 73, 74 73 94 158 75 75 251–52, 307 10, 27, 77 70 94–95 275 125, 261 243 275 125, 261 184 204 243 275 75 75 243 125, 261 125, 261 261

330 48:8–9 50:4–5 51:9–10 51:9 51:13 57:15 58:7–8 60:19–20 Jeremiah 1:2 1:4 1:11–12 1:11 1:13–19 1:13–14 1:13 2:1 4:1–2 4:10 4:23–26 4:23 6:16 6:26 7:9 9:19 11:20 12:1–3 12:1 12:4 13:3 13:8 14:1 14:14 15:10–21 15:10a 15:15–21 16:1 17:7–8 17:5–8 17:23 18:5 18:13–17 20 20:7–10 20:7 20:9 20:11–13

Source Index 125, 261 72 158 243, 244 75 94 254 184

65, 70 70 65, 66 70 65 66 70 70 170 81 65, 67, 160 163 261 158 70 72 157 156 157 157 70 70 65 65, 73 157 159 156 70 254 261 72 70 125, 261 157–160, 166, 232, 241 157, 160, 163, 303 82–83 83 156

20:14–18 20:14–15 20:14 20:15 20:17 20:18 23:16 23:17 23:18–22 23:18 23:19 23:23–24 23:30 23:32 23:33–38 24:1–10 24:3 24:4 25:3 25:13 31:29 31:35 32:6 32:26 38:21–23 44:10 45 48:43–44 49:1–5(+6) 49:5 49:7–22 49:23–27 49:28–33 51:5

157–160, 303 160 159 159 159 159 65, 71, 73 65 128 128, 227 76 76 71, 128 65, 71 137 65, 66 84 70 70 221 254 184 70 70 65, 66, 67 94 221 75 221 75 221 221 221 85–86

Ezekiel 1:1–2:8 1:3 1:4 1:5 1:13–16 1:26–28 2:9–39 3:10 8:2–6 8:7–13 8:14–15 8:16–18 9:1–10

66 70 76, 77 78 78 78 66 72 66 66 66 66 66

331

Source Index 9:1 10:1 10:2–19 10:9–10 10:22 12:27 13:11–13 13:16 14:1–11 14:9 14:12–20 14:14 14:20 16:52 18:2 27:30–31 28 28:2–10 32:7 36:23c–28 37–39 37 37:1–14 38–39

72 78 66 78 78 73 76 73 81 81 286 54 54 88 254 158 127–28 263 184 220, 305 305 220–21 66 220–21

7:5 7:7–8 7:8 7:12 8:1–3 8:1–2 8:3 8:9–10 9:1–4 9:1

84 66 84 73 65 66 84 158 65 66

Obadiah 1:1

65

Jonah 1:1 1:5–6 1:12

70 73 76

Micah 1:1 2:4 2:11 3:7 7:17

70 188 27 73 75

Hosea 1:1 4:2 4:12–5:4 6:1–2 7:1 7:11 9:7 12:1[11:12] 12:2[1]

70 70 27, 81 252 71 163 27, 81 241 27, 81

Nahum 1:1 1:3

65 76

Habakkuk 2:6 3:5 3:11

188 121 184

Zephaniah 1:1 1:14–15

70 258

Haggai 1:1

70

Zechariah 1:1 1:7–17 1:8–15 1:8 1:9 1:12

70 65, 66 66 73 84 249

Joel 1:1 2:2 2:10 3:1[2:28] 4:15[3:15] Amos 5:8–9 5:18 7:1–3 7:2 7:4–6

70 258 184 7, 20, 65, 73 184

231 258 66 84 66

332

Source Index

2:1–4 2:5–9 3:1–7 3:1–2 4:1–6a 4:10b–14 5:1–4 5:3–4 5:5–11 6:1–8 6:5 13:2–6 13:2–3 13:4 14:5

65, 66 66 65, 66 90 65, 66 65, 66 65 71 66 65, 66 282 81 65 7, 73 241

Malachi 1:1

70

Psalms 1 1:6 2:11 2:12 8:4–6[3–5] 8:5[4] 8:6[5] 10:9 11:7 14:3 14:4 14:5 16:6 17:15 18:16[15] 18:22[21] 22:7[6] 22:20[19] 27:1 27:9 29:3–9 31:12–13[11–12] 32:1–7 33:8 34:19[18] 35:2 36:2[1] 37 37:7

261 87 75 75 135–36, 242 8, 123, 231, 251 277 244 73 86 86 75, 86 186 78 186 85 184 240 75 240 79 95 86 231 94 240 75 255, 287 87

37:16 37:25 37:38–39 37:38 38:5[4] 38:19[18] 38:23[22] 39:12[11] 39:14[13] 40:18[17] 41:6[5] 48:7 50:18 53:4[3] 53:5[4] 53:6[5] 55:7–9[6–8] 64:2 65:4 68:8–9[7–8] 70:2[1] 74:13–14 76:7[6] 78:53 79:5–13 81:16[15] 82 85:9[8] 88 89:6–8[5–7] 89:10–11[9–10] 89:11[10] 89:20[19] 91:5 94:12 94:19 104 104:4 104:7 104:29 105:28 107 107:17 107:29 107:40 114:3–8 130:3–4 139:23 143:3

87, 255 255 254 255 86 86 240 86 88 240 95 75 70 86 86 75 231 75 86 231 240 158 73 75 231 231 90 117 87, 255 241 158 244 73 75 252 73 231 27 231 231 75 231, 244 163 78 244 231 86 73 94

Source Index 148:3–4

184

Proverbs 1:7 1:26–33 3:11–13 3:24–25 3:33 8:25 10:5 10:8 12:16 14:7 17:1 19:1 19:15 23:28 24–31 26:18 29:24 30:1–4 30:3

163 75 252 75 87 127 73 163 163 163 255 255 73 244 221 92 70 28 241

Job 1–2 1:1 1:5 1:6–12 1:6 1:8 1:9–11 1:10 1:11 1:12 1:16 1:19 1:20–21 1:21 2:1–7 2:1 2:3 2:4–5 2:5 2:6 2:9–10 2:9 3–5 3–4

280–84 88, 280, 284 281 65 77 88, 280, 284 281 281 281, 282 282 282 82 282 281 65 77 88, 280, 282, 283–84 281 281, 282, 283 281, 282 282 281 64 211–12, 214–15, 218

3 3:3–11 3:3–9 3:3–5 3:3 3:4–6 3:8 3:9 3:10–13 3:10 3:11–26 3:11 3:12–19 3:14–16 3:16 3:19 3:20–26 3:20–23 3:23 3:24–26 3:24 3:25 3:26 4–5 4 4:1–11 4:1 4:2–11 4:2–9 4:2–7 4:2–6 4:2 4:3–4 4:5–6 4:6–7 4:6 4:6 [OG] 4:7–5:7 4:7–11

4:7–9

333 43–44, 153–160, 222, 230, 236, 301 154, 156–160, 236, 303 48, 166 159 48, 153–54, 159– 160, 166, 303 153 160 153 153 108, 121, 153–54, 159, 160 231 159 154, 236 154 153 154 154 155–56, 160 21, 48, 154, 177, 236 102, 153, 155, 160, 166, 236 153 21, 44, 48, 108, 154, 155, 169, 252 153, 155, 166 5, 22–24, 161–67 222, 230 48–49, 167–68, 212, 214, 301 167 13, 15 39, 40 41, 128 17, 151, 251 15, 162, 250, 252 116, 252, 254 116–17, 252, 298 13 252 289 18 3, 4, 14, 22, 32–33, 35, 117–19, 161–62, 165, 233, 249, 302 2

334 4:7–8 4:7 4:8–11 4:8 4:9–11 4:9 4:10–11 4:12–5:7 4:12–21

4:12–19 4:12–17 4:12–16

4:12

4:12 [OG] 4:13–14 4:13

4:13 [OG] 4:14

4:15–19 4:15–16 4:15

Source Index 14, 17, 19, 121, 298 4, 22, 25, 32, 39, 119, 146 13. 126 4, 102, 116, 119, 120, 229, 249, 308 32 77, 110, 116 39, 116, 151, 161 13 1–2, 11–53, 65–98, 150–53, 156–57, 160, 167–68, 175, 193, 196, 206, 208, 212–14, 218, 230– 36, 280, 293–94, 298–300, 302, 307 42 29 4–6, 10, 19, 26, 38, 40, 43–44, 69–84, 100–113, 126, 134– 35, 137, 145–46, 151, 154–55, 161, 165, 187, 232–33, 238, 279, 293, 295, 299, 303 10, 15, 70–72, 101, 105, 128, 140, 142, 150, 162, 187, 250, 280 288, 289 6, 30, 60, 68, 133– 35, 137 10, 61, 72–74, 111, 123, 129–130, 155, 173–75, 242, 256, 263, 300 288 20, 44, 75, 83, 102, 105, 108, 109, 117, 120, 153, 155, 157, 170, 184, 242, 281, 297, 299 243 10, 75, 80, 118, 140, 244, 279 16, 19, 20, 32, 75, 76, 78, 101, 105,

4:15b 4:16

4:16 [OG] 4:16a 4:17–21

4:17–19

4:17–18 4:17

4:17 (OG) 4:17a 4:17b 4:18–21 4:18–19 4:18 4:18a 4:18b 4:19–21

4:19–21 [OG] 4:19c–21

4:19

129, 138, 144, 249, 281, 283 141 5, 76–78, 79, 100, 105, 143, 187, 232, 264, 280 288 33 13, 15, 17, 20, 24, 26, 33, 50, 84–98, 104, 113–15, 117, 119, 135, 136, 147, 162, 216, 230, 233– 35, 298 7, 9, 35, 38, 47, 103, 115, 122–24, 149, 181–82, 192, 209, 222, 232–35, 237– 38, 243–44, 257, 275, 278, 281, 299 97 18, 20, 50, 68, 84– 89, 93, 96, 131, 138– 140, 146, 171, 175– 78, 180, 274, 276, 280, 300, 303 86 6 92 19, 88, 98, 120, 233 30, 89, 140–41, 281 18, 32, 90–91, 182, 183–84, 234–35 92 89–90 7, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 32, 39, 40, 46, 91– 97, 121, 122, 126, 138, 154, 157, 165, 184, 192, 232, 300, 309 288 33, 97, 114–15, 118, 233–35, 238, 243, 247 24, 87, 89, 93–94, 100, 120, 135, 138, 142, 165, 192, 234, 240

Source Index 4:19b 4:19b [OG] 4:19c 4:20–21 4:20

4:20a 4:20b 4:21 5:1–16 5:1–7 5:1–5 5:1

5:2–7 5:2–5 5:2 5:3–7 5:3–5 5:3 5:4 5:5 5:6–7 5:6 5:7 5:8–27 5:8–16 5:8

5:9–27 5:9–16 5:11–16 5:11 5:12 5:13 5:14 5:15–16 5:15 5:16 5:17–27 5:17–18

96–97 288 33, 94, 233 14 3, 4, 7, 8, 48, 117, 129–130, 154, 166, 300, 303 94 95 24, 96, 164 15 32–33, 116 4, 35, 119–120, 155, 161, 165, 302 4, 32–33, 44, 48, 57, 119, 120, 161–62, 164, 249–250 18, 249 3, 32, 126, 131, 145, 163, 252 115, 117, 163 231 15, 164–65 4, 24, 26, 102, 116, 119, 229, 249, 308 115, 165 101 3, 32, 37, 120, 162, 165, 266 121, 146 24, 26, 121, 145 3, 15, 41, 47, 128, 146, 151, 252 16 106, 116, 119, 122, 161, 165, 249–250, 252, 255–56, 266 122, 170, 256, 266 120, 161 16 165 116 24, 26 117 116 299 165 16, 17, 120, 161, 175 252, 266

5:17 5:18 5:20–21 5:20 5:21–22 5:21 5:27 6:4 6:8–13 6:8–10 6:8 6:9 6:10 6:11–13 6:12 6:13 6:26 7:1–21 7:1–20aβb 7:1–10 7:4–5 7:5 7:6–10 7:6 7:8 7:11–21 7:11 7:12–21 7:13–15 7:13–14 7:14 7:15–16 7:15 7:16–21 7:16 7:17–21 7:17–18 7:17 7:19–21 7:20–21 7:20

335 3, 121, 122, 145, 162 116 122, 165, 193, 233 115 298 116, 117, 252 116, 171, 260, 262, 308 110 50, 240 231 240 115, 138, 240 48, 50, 63, 133, 137, 228, 239, 240, 257 138, 240 107, 299 240 138, 241–42 138 37 7 134–35 107, 181–82, 299 130 135 130 30, 153, 236, 295 236, 242 135 29, 30, 109, 133–34, 137, 174, 298 48, 60, 135, 173–75, 236, 242 6, 36, 63, 123, 129– 130, 238, 242, 256 236 107, 242, 299, 300 283 7 7, 123, 131, 135–37, 139, 177, 242, 277 136, 231 8, 38, 122–23, 126, 137, 242, 299 236 36, 171–72, 178–79, 237 137

336 7:21 8:2–7 8:2–3 8:2 8:3–7 8:3–4 8:4–22 8:4–6 8:4 8:5–7 8:5 8:7 8:8–22 8:8–13 8:8–10 8:8–9 8:8 8:9 8:10–11 8:10 8:11 8:13 8:14–22 8:20–22 8:21 9–10 9

9:2–14 9:2–4 9:2

9:2a 9:2b 9:3–16 9:3–4 9:3 9:5–10 9:5–8 9:4–14 9:5–14 9:9–10 9:11–15

Source Index 7, 260 50 63, 131, 300 110, 138, 217, 241, 260, 263 3 260 300 17, 131 262, 267 260 256 4 125 260 106, 131, 229, 260, 308 262 264–65 106 125 8, 41, 205 131 131 261 17 131 21 40, 149, 186–87, 207–8, 216, 218, 237, 294 36 23 6, 50, 138–39, 142, 153, 181–82, 208, 216, 237, 242–43, 262, 279 40 206, 266 243 139 177, 237, 243 231 186 237 206, 208 140 243–44

9:11–12 9:11 9:13–15 9:13–14 9:13 [Targum] 9:14–20 9:14 9:15–35 9:15–23 9:15–16 9:15 9:16–17 9:17–31 9:17–24 9:17 9:19 9:20–22 9:20–21 9:20 9:22–24 9:22–24 [OG] 9:22 9:23–24 9:23 9:26 9:27 9:28–35 9:28–31 9:28 9:30–31 9:32–35 9:32 9:34–35 10:1–15 10:1–7 10:2–7 10:3b 10:5 10:8–22 10:9–14 10:10–11 10:11 10:14 10:17 10:18–22

78, 112, 132, 140, 279 41, 43, 186 244 140, 186, 234 285–86 139 237 36, 141 283 237 141 275 243 262 141, 237, 243, 283 237 6 237 141 141, 237, 244, 288– 89 288–89 24, 94, 139, 190–91, 239, 309 239 300 78 107 237 6, 239 262 4, 8, 123–24, 141, 243, 299 28, 139, 237, 243 237 237–38 4 243 142 239 114 243 142 295 107 262 163 142

Source Index 11:2–6 11:3 11:4 11:5–9 11:5–6a 11:6 [OG] 11:7–8 11:8 11:10–12 11:10–11 11:11–12 11:13–19 11:13–15 11:20 12 [OG] 12:3 12:4 12:7–13:2 12:7–25 12:7 12:9–25 12:9 12:13–25 12:19–20 12:21 [OG] 13:1 13:2 13:3–6 13:3 13:4 13:7–12 13:7–8 13:7 13:9–11 13:11 13:12 13:13–28 13:13–22 13:21 13:24–14:4 14:1–22 14:1–12 14:1–4 14:1 14:7–10 14:10 14:13–17 14:15–22 14:18–22

17 111 61, 106 262, 263, 308 132 289 132 262 132 78, 112, 132 262 132 17 132 289 204 133, 142–43, 157 204 143 205, 244 204, 205 204 231, 247 245 290 107, 143, 279–280 204 143 245 143, 268 143 268 143, 307 21 108 268 245 143 238 144 36 7 12, 44, 124, 245 8, 38, 122–24, 299 30 31, 114, 300 7 144 7, 245

14:19–20 14:19 14:19c [OG] 15:2–16 15:2–13 15:2–11 15:2–8 15:2 15:4–8 15:5–6 [OG] 15:6 15:7–8 15:7 15:8 15:9–11 15:9–10 15:10 15:11–16 15:11 15:12–19 15:12–16 15:12–13 15:13 15:14–16

15:14–15 15:14 15:15–16 15:15 15:16 15:17–35 15:17–19 15:17 15:18 15:19 15:20–35 15:20 15:21 15:23–24 15:25 15:28–30

337 8, 31, 130, 245, 300 114, 300 289 222, 256, 258 299 128 36, 41, 127, 263, 294 110, 127, 138, 217, 241 48 289 8, 129 127, 227, 274 261 28, 128, 256 99, 128, 171, 256, 294, 299 106 34 34, 36, 206 229–30, 256–57, 307 257 48, 63, 129, 151, 294 8, 40, 99, 125 39, 41, 110, 126, 128 7, 35, 37–41, 44, 46, 50, 97, 99, 122–24, 126–27, 145, 152, 181–82, 216, 233, 265, 299, 300 184 124, 137, 139 141 91, 182, 256 4, 179 39, 41, 99, 299 35, 171, 229, 257, 294, 308 102, 106, 229, 249 137–38, 257 258 35. 126–27, 131, 145, 193, 257 193 41, 79, 107, 109, 126, 170, 193, 299 258 3, 126 101

338 15:30 15:35 16–17 16:2 16:3 16:9–21 16:16 16:19–21 16:19 17:2 17:9 17:14 18:14 18:21 19:2 19:3 19:6–22 19:20–21 19:20 19:23–24 19:25–27 19:25 19:26–27 19:26 19:27 20:1–23aβb 20:2–11 20:2–8 20:2–3 20:2 20:3 20:4–29 20:4–5 20:4 20:5–29 20:5–9 20:5 20:7–8 20:7 20:8 20:9 20:11 20:15 20:24 20:25 20:28

Source Index 110 32, 121, 257 42 268 294 245 107 28 244 268 87 182 193 3 115 111 245 109, 281, 283 107, 299 55 144 28, 245 257 107, 299 107 37 30, 111, 295 37, 61, 308 106, 110–112, 129, 146, 263, 300 73 111, 138, 241 300 112, 129, 193 229, 264–65, 295, 308 112, 263 274 31, 47 129–130 8, 130, 233 9, 29, 47, 73, 174, 256, 263 130 107, 109, 110, 299 265 78, 113 193 218, 304

20:29 21 21 [OG] 21:7–34 21:8 21:9 21:14–15 21:17–18 21:17–18 [OG] 21:18 21:19a 21:23–24 21:26 21:28–33 21:34 22–27 22 22:2–4 22:2–3 22:4–20 22:4–11 22:4–5 22:6–9 22:9 22:10–20 22:10 22:12–20 22:13–15 22:15–30 22:15–20 22:15–16 22:15 22:17 22:18 22:20 22:21–30 22:21–22 22:21 22:22–26 22:22 22:23 22:27 22:29–30 22:30 23:1–27:12 23:1–17

193, 206, 211–12, 218, 265, 304, 305 217, 294 289 246 192, 304 108, 192, 193 178 290 289–290 110, 191, 304 43 110 182 290 200 215 201, 218 171 178–79 267 169, 258 172 172 115 172 109, 170, 193 258 172 3 170 231 172 106 106 106 17, 21, 41, 47, 126, 170, 259 294, 307 171 172 170–71, 229–30, 259, 264, 307 3, 170 279 170 179 217 149, 238

Source Index 23:2–12 23:2 23:3–9 23:4 23:9 23:13–16 23:15–16 [OG] 23:15 23:17 24–27 24:1–12 24:1 24:12 24:17–24 24:17 24:18–24

24:18–24 [OG] 24:20 24:23 25–27 25–26 25 25:1 25:2–6

25:2 25:3 25:4–6

25:4 25:5–6 25:5 25:6 26 26:1 26:2–14

245 190 140 190 257 190 289 108, 245 107 49, 149, 168–69, 195–223 247 191, 257 191 247 190 49, 191, 197–98, 200, 203, 209–10, 215–16 289 182 202–3, 247 64, 181, 206. 213– 14, 222, 294, 301 207–12, 215, 218, 234, 265–66, 303–4 37, 38, 187, 199, 206, 216, 265, 308 214 33–34, 53, 181–83, 207–8, 215–16, 222– 23, 294, 295, 298 34, 183–84, 207 183 9, 35–36, 43, 46, 48, 97, 149, 151–53, 182, 233, 265 34. 124, 206, 266 216 34, 91, 183, 234 34, 183–84, 207, 234 10, 149, 185–88, 223, 230, 305, 308 201, 214, 218, 302, 305 49, 53, 64, 150, 169, 214, 217–18, 293, 301–2, 307

26:2–4 26:3 26:4 26:5–14

26:11 26:14

27 27:1 27:2–12 27:2–7 27:2–6 27:2 27:5 27:7–23 27:7–12 27:7–10 27:7 27:8–10 27:11–12 27:11 27:12 27:13–23

27:13–20 [OG] 27:13 27:14 27:16–18 27:17 27:18 27:20 28 29–31 29–30 29:1 29:2

339 57, 185, 188, 199, 207, 212, 217, 266 185 185 185–87, 194, 196, 197–99, 207–9, 212, 215–16, 231, 294 207 10, 72, 149–150, 186–87, 207, 217, 266, 302 230, 305 57, 188, 201–2, 214, 218, 301, 302, 305 190, 200, 209–10, 217, 301 188, 193 149, 189, 215, 245 189 57, 188 197 49, 189, 191, 215– 16, 247 212–13 189, 213 189–190, 213 188, 190, 213 137–38, 188 200, 216, 268 10, 53, 57, 150, 169, 191–94, 196, 198, 200. 206, 209–19, 223, 284, 290, 293, 294, 295, 301–2, 304–5, 307 289 193, 206, 211, 304, 305 192, 304 192 304 192, 211 110, 191, 193, 304 194 149, 194–95, 304 42 57, 188, 201–2, 301, 305 245–46

340 30:15 30:17–21 30:17 30:20–22 30:21 30:30 31:9 31:23 31:26–28 31:28 31:31 31:35–37 32–35 32:2 32:3 32:7–10 32:18–22 33:4 33:5 33:8–13 33:8–11 33:8 33:9 33:12–19 33:12–18 33:12 33:13 33:14–22 33:14–18 33:14 33:15 33:19–22 33:23–28 33:23–26 34:5–6 34:7–11 34:7 34:10–37 34:11 34:18–30 34:21 34:22–28 34:22 34:31 [11Q10] 35:2 35:3–8 35:3

Source Index 110 109 107, 299 195 246 107, 299 163 195 91, 163 108 107 246 64, 284 9, 37, 180, 274 274 274 274 274 107 176–77 61 107 203 202 30 175–78, 180–81, 274 177 175 29, 174, 176, 274, 300 174 9, 37, 48, 61, 173– 74, 257 174, 274 274 249 203 179 202 274 274 202 202 274 202 285 9, 177, 180, 274, 276 177, 274 178

35:6–7 35:8 35:9–16 36:6–9 36:10–16 36:17–23 36:21 37:2–5 38–41 38:1–40:5 38:1–40:2 38:1 38:2 38:3 38:7 40:3–5 40:6 40:7–14 40:7 40:8 40:9–13 40:9 41:14[22] 42:1–6 42:2–6 42:3 42:4 42:5 42:6 42:6 [11Q10] 42:7–17 42:7–10 42:7–9 42:7 42:11 42:12–17

178–79 179 203 274 275 164 164 79 277 21 275 76, 275 28, 279 279 77, 91 23, 34 76, 275 276–78 279 276, 303 79, 276 79 20 278–280 34, 303 28, 279 279 107, 108, 279–280 30 285 280–84 10 99, 280, 284, 295, 297 284 282 281

Lamentations 2:14 3:34 4:7

137 94 8

Ecclesiastes 3:16–22 4:1–3 7:15 7:20 8:14

255 255 255 86 255

341

Source Index 9:1–11 9:1–3

86 87, 255, 309

Esther 8:17 9:2 9:3

75 75 75

Daniel 2 2:19 2:28 3:31–4:34[4:1–37] 4:10 4:14 4:20 7 8 8:3–14 8:13 8:15 8:16 8:18 8:26–27 8:27 9:23

68 65 73 73 65 241 241 241 65 5, 65 66 241 78 78 73 78 68, 75 70, 78

10 10:1 10:5–14 10:6 10:7–8 10:9 10:12 10:16 10:18 10:19 12:5–7

5 70, 78 66 78 78 73 68, 75 78 78 68, 75 66

1 Chronicles 14:17 17:15 21:9

75 73 73

2 Chronicles 14:13[14] 17:10 18:20–23 19:7 19:9 20:29 22:11 32:32

75 75 77 75 75 75 71 73

III. New Testament Romans 3:10–26 3:12 3:23

309 86 86

James 5 5:1–6

305 287

5:7–11

287

2 Peter 2:4

90

Revelation 12

20

IV. Other Jewish Literature 1 Enoch 9:3 9:10 15:2 81:5

250 250 250 35

1QH 9.21–23 11.23–25 12.29–31 20.24–31

35 35 35, 309 35

342

Source Index

22.7

35

1QS 11.9–22

35

Aristeas, Concerning the Jews 290–91, 305 b. Sanhedrin 89b

72

Sirach 10:10 [MS A] 17:30–32 18:8–14 18:32 [MS C] 32:14 [MSS B, F] 32:15 [MSS B, F] 40:1–11 42:17 44–50 44:7–10[9–12] 44:8[10] 44:9[11]

72 35 35, 309 72 92 92 35 241 286 286 286 286

Testament of Abraham 15:15

287

Testament of Dan 6:2

250

Testament of Job 2:2

54, 290–92, 305 291

2:4 3:1–4:11 3:1 4:4 4:6–8 4:8 26:1–27:7 33:2–9 33:3–5 38:1–5 39:11–40:3 41 41:1 41:5 42 42:1–43:17

291 291 291 291–92 292 287 291 291 291 291 291 289 291 291 291 291

Testament of Levi 5:5

250

Tobit 12:12 12:15

250 250

Tosefta Shabbat 13:2–3

285

Unetanneh Tokef

46–47

Wisdom of Solomon 9:15 93 12:12 250

Author Index Albertz, R. 248, 253, 258 Andersen, F.I. 17, 95, 276, 277 Anderson, J.E. 72, 80–81, 82 Annus, A. 54 Arnold, B.T. 12 Balentine, S.E. 16, 17, 30, 55, 126, 136, 186, 193, 197–98, 207, 277–78, 279 Bandy, A.S. 237 Barr, J. 69 Barth, K. 19 Barton, J. 59 Baumgärtel, D.F. 14, 33, 39, 41 Beentjes, P.C. 62 Behrens, A. 65–66, 67, 73, 75, 80–81, 84, 232, 235–36 Ben Zvi, E. 28, 227 Beuken, W.A.M. 18–19, 86, 87–88, 89–90, 92, 118, 234, 235 Birnbaum, P. 47 Blair, J.M. 82 Blenkinsopp, J. 95 Block, D.I. 220 Blommerde, A.C.M. 94 Bovati, P. 246, 259 Breed, B.W. 296 Brinks Rea, C.L. 60, 243, 251 Broyles, C.C. 95 Brueggemann, W. 254 Budde, D.K. 12, 13, 71 Burnight, J. 121 Butler, S.A.L. 65 Buttenwieser, M. 42 Caesar, L.O. 44, 77, 86, 132, 226, 229 Callender, D.E. Jr. 127 Carr, D. 59 Childs, B.S. 251

Chisholm, R.B. Jr. 80 Clines, D.J.A. 5, 13–14, 15, 17, 26, 38, 55, 56, 74, 76, 77, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 96, 134, 174–75, 178, 208, 210, 212–13, 238, 275, 276, 278, 279 Coleman, J.N. 12 Cotter, D.W. 11, 20, 26, 29, 68, 71, 74, 75, 78, 89, 103, 134, 161, 162, 164 Cox, C.E. 2, 288, 289 Crenshaw, J.L. 81, 82, 252 Crook, M.B. 33, 169 Curtis, J.B. 245, 278, 279 Dahood, M. 76 Daniels, D.R. 237 Davids, P.H. 287 Day, P.L. 91, 282–83 DeRoche, M. 237 Delitzsch, F. 12–13 Dell, K.J. 28, 31, 60, 62, 70, 83, 160, 227, 231, 232, 254 Dhorme, É. 16, 41–42, 56, 73, 180, 200, 201, 212, 263, 288 Dillard, R.B. 250, 255 Dillmann, A. 12, 13–14, 89, 92, 93 Dobbs-Allsopp, F.W. 195 Driver, S.R. 16, 249 Duhm, D.B. 12 Ebach, J. 14–15, 55 Ehrlich, E.L. 65 Erickson, A. 105 Esau, K. 81 Eslinger, L. 136 Fidler, R.

67

344

Author Index

Fishbane, M. 60, 123, 136, 158, 160, 175 Fitzgerald, A. 127 Fohrer, G. 17, 18–19, 33, 40, 71, 74, 86, 184, 190, 231 Foster, B.R. 1, 198 Frevel, C. 136 Fuchs, G. 244, 253 Fulco, W.J. 121 Fullerton, K. 21–25, 31, 32, 39–41, 44, 52, 77, 78–79, 85, 237, 247, 293 Fyall, R.S. 20–21, 26, 40, 68, 82, 247, 279, 281 Gammie, J.G. 254 Gard, D.H. 222, 288 Gentry, P.J. 286, 288, 290 Gibson, E.C.S. 12 Gibson, J.C.L. 24–26, 247 Gietmann, G. 19–20 Gillischewski, E. 32, 42 Gillmayr-Bucher, S. 105 Ginsberg, H.L. 8, 43–44, 46, 47, 48, 152, 153, 168, 197, 207–8, 214, 228, 248, 256–57, 265 Gitay, Y. 52, 227, 307 Gordis, R. 16, 44, 49–50, 60, 70, 212, 232, 236 Gradl, F. 55 Gray, G.B. 16, 249 Gray, J. 42, 54, 55, 72, 77, 88, 253, 262 Greenstein, E.L. 7, 20, 26, 44–45, 47– 50, 51, 52, 62, 70, 83, 102, 103, 114, 133, 148–49, 153–56, 158, 160. 166, 167–68, 174, 179, 182, 212, 213, 214, 226–29, 239–241, 248, 249, 252, 253, 260, 265, 267–68, 276, 278, 279–280, 301, 302, 303, 305, 307 Groß, H. 14 Gruber, M.I. 44, 46–47, 49–50, 53, 185, 208, 209, 227–28, 229, 239– 241, 248, 253, 254–55, 261, 263, 279, 307 Habel, N.C. 8, 14, 26–27, 30, 32, 69, 70, 75, 78, 86, 93, 111, 124, 125, 126, 132, 136, 138, 143, 162, 170,

172, 176, 190, 210, 212, 238, 245, 257, 261, 263, 265, 275, 276–78, 304 Hallaschka, M. 249 Hamori, E.J. 10, 26–27, 70, 73, 77, 81–82, 297 Handy, L.K. 282 Haralambakis, M. 291 Harding, J.E. 10, 20, 26–29, 45, 52, 59, 68, 70, 71, 74, 76, 77, 85, 88, 103, 226–27, 229, 235, 281, 297, 307 Hartley, J.E. 14, 16, 275, 276 Hatton, P. 254 Hays, C.B. 26 Hays, R.B. 61 Heckl, R. 55, 280 Hermisson, H.-J. 245 Hertzberg, H.W. 14 Herz, N. 94 Hesse, F. 33 Hoffman, Y. 26–27, 68, 237 Hoffmann, J.G.E. 76 Holbert, J.C. 8, 29, 62, 112, 130, 229 Holman, J. 245 Hölscher, G. 33 Hontheim, J. 19–20 Horst, F. 14, 65, 66, 86 Hufnagel, W.F. 76 Irsigler, H. 245 Irwin, W.A. 176 Janzen, J.G. 20, 186, 281 Johnson, T.J. 20–21, 26, 45, 54, 95, 194, 247 Jones, S.C. 105, 194, 211, 277 Joo, S. 164 Joyce, P.M. 54, 286 Kaiser, G. 55 Kaiser, O. 34, 55, 95, 201, 251, 252– 53 Kellenberger, E. 87 Kingsbury, E.C. 65 Klein, A. 220, 221, 305 Knohl, I. 82 Koch, K. 254

Author Index Köhlmoos, M. 6, 10, 26, 36–39, 44, 53, 57, 88, 115, 123, 124, 154, 167, 169, 206, 218, 226, 234 König, E. 39, 40, 42, 44 Kottsieper, I. 34 Kraus, H.-J. 255 Kummerow, D. 26, 115 Kynes, W. 8, 59–62, 123, 136, 231, 242, 243, 254, 277 Lanckau, J. 65 Lauber, S. 55, 178, 194, 202–3 van Leeuwen, R.C. 136 di Lella, A. 286 Lenzi, A. 54 Levinson, B.M. 61, 62 Lilly, I.E. 220, 305 Limburg, J. 237 Linafelt, T. 54, 282–83 Lipiński, E. 121 Long, B.O. 65, 66 Longman, T. III 16–17, 26, 56, 266 Lynch, M.J. 107 Lyons, M.A. 60, 62 Maag, V. 27, 37–38, 282 MacDonald, N. 76 Magdalene, F.R. 91, 195, 237, 245, 278, 282–83 Mangan, C. 285 Mathys, H.-P. 55 Mattingly, G.L. 35, 54, 198, 199, 253 May, H.G. 127 McKane, W. 221 McKay, J.W. 274 Michel, W.L. 94, 253 Miller, J.E. 26, 226 Miller, P.D. Jr. 241 Moberly, R.W.L. 80 Montgomery, J.A. 158 Moo, D.J. 287 de Moor, J.C. 55, 253 Morrow, W. 279 Mowinckel, S. 245 Müller, H.-P. 54, 199 Nam, D.-W. 55 Newsom, C.A. 4, 6, 25, 27, 54, 55, 56, 86, 89, 154, 155, 159, 161, 176, 178,

345

180, 183, 189, 195, 197–200, 207, 215–17, 219, 248, 256, 266, 267, 273, 275, 278, 279, 304 Nicholas, D.A. 81 Niditch, S. 65, 66 Noegel, S.B. 67 Nõmmik, U. 4, 33–37, 55, 161, 201 Noth, M. 286 Notter, M. 11, 29–30, 45, 70, 71, 72, 73, 103, 110 Oblath, M.D. 91, 282 Oppenheim, A.L. 65 van Oortschot, J. 34 Oshima, T. 198 Paul, S.M. 26, 44, 76 Peake, A.S. 85 Peters, N. 19 Pfeiffer, R.H. 208 Phillips, E.A. 48, 280 Pilger, T. 55, 175, 178, 180, 203 Pinker, A. 18, 45, 90–92, 183–84, 235 Pope, M.H. 27, 35, 53, 55, 70, 90, 162, 174, 197, 263 Portier-Young, A. 291, 292 Pyeon, Y. 59, 60, 61, 70, 136, 137 Rimbach, J.A. 93, 94 Roberts, J.J.M. 80, 237 Robertson, E. 27 Rowley, H.H. 16 Sandmel, S. 60 Scherer, A. 11, 15–16, 36, 37, 45, 55, 170, 171, 248, 255 Schmid, K. 26, 45, 60, 71, 136, 176 Schmidt, L. 67, 68 Schnieringer, H. 136 Sedlmeier, F. 54, 199 Seitz, C.R. 56 Seow, C.-L. 10, 20, 53, 55, 56, 57, 72, 79, 89, 94, 134, 174, 188, 195, 235, 240, 244, 257, 258, 266, 281, 285, 286, 288 Skehan, P.W. 286 Smith, G.V. 8, 32, 43, 45, 47, 87, 91, 130, 149, 151, 152, 162, 228, 235, 241, 260, 265, 281

346

Author Index

Sommer, B.D. 59, 60, 62 Spieckermann, H. 54, 91, 282–83 Spottorno, M.A. 221 Strauß, H. 55 Syring, W.-D. 34, 280 Szczygiel, P.P. 14, 20, 75 Talmon, S. 62 Terrien, S. 16, 86, 278 Torczyner, H. (see Tur-Sinai) Tov, E. 167–68, 220–21 Tsoi, J.T.P. 26–31, 68, 105 Tur-Sinai, N.H. (=Torcyzner) 8, 39– 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 56, 67, 96, 125, 148, 149, 151–53, 171, 172, 179, 207–8, 214, 233, 235, 250, 265, 297, 300, 301, 305, 307 Ulrich, E. 220–21 Um, S.T. 77 Van Dam, C. 250 Vermeylen, J. 34, 35 Vicchio, S.J. 288 Vischer, W. 19

Wahl, H.-M. 175, 204, 286 Wanke, R.M. 34, 55 Watters, W.R. 103 Weinfeld, M. 44, 54, 71–72, 128, 199 Weisberg, D.B. 12 Weiser, A. 14, 85 Weiss, M. 24–26, 44, 50, 89, 177, 247 Werblowsky, R.J.Z. 71–72 Westermann, C. 197, 201 Whedbee, J.W. 26, 247, 306 Whitekettle, R. 16, 88 Whybray, N. 26 de Wilde, A. 14 Williams, M.J. 81 Wilson, L. 273 Witte, M. 4, 33–37, 53, 56, 100–101, 103, 119, 147, 148, 161, 182–83, 201–6, 218, 226, 242–43, 252, 259, 264, 280, 292, 298, 302, 304 Wolfers, D. 117, 185, 207, 252 Würthwein, E. 27, 37, 39 Zgoll, A. 65 Ziegler, J. 288, 289, 290 Zuckerman, B. 54, 62, 154, 159, 285

Subject Index a maiore ad minus argument 89, 92 Abram 73, 75, 79, 83 accusations against God 6–7, 33, 133, 139, 142, 144, 176–77, 179, 188–89, 195, 233, 245, 268, 283 – reduced in Job’s reception 288–92 – reduced in Job’s redaction 284–85, 293–95 alliteration 161, 256 allusions 60–63, 116–145 ancestral wisdom 112, 125–26, 128, 131–32, 171, 226–230, 248, 257–59, 260–62, 267, 294–95, 299–300 angel(s) 37, 183–84, 235, 241, 249– 250, 282 apostasy 163–65, 250, 252 biblical tradition, friends’ reliance on 249–268, 306–8 the canonical form of the text 55–56, 293–95, 296–97, 306–9 caricature 247–48, 267, 306 chiasm 182–83 citation formulae 8, 43, 60–62, 125– 26, 151 composition history of Job 53–58, 147–225, 272–95, 296–97 corporeal imagery 5–6, 105–8, 116, 147, 190, 194–95, 228, 267, 299 cosmological contrast 37, 183–84 creation 87, 89, 121, 160, 186, 277 curse on the day of birth 156–160, 303 the day of YHWH 258 destruction – of the fool 15, 115, 117, 120, 163– 65

– indiscriminate 31, 46, 50, 93–97, 115, 130, 141–45, 192, 217, 234, 283, 288, 298, 300 – sudden 13, 41, 47, 96, 133, 235 – universal 6, 94, 114–15, 131, 139, 141 – of the wicked 8, 41, 47, 109–111, 113, 115, 118–19, 126, 129–131, 161, 192, 217, 257, 289, 299–300 death, Job’s conflicting views on 26, 154, 190, 242 diachronic analysis 32, 55–58, 295 dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked – affirmed by the friends 2–3, 18, 30, 39–40, 117, 122, 124–25, 131, 132–33, 161–62, 169, 179–180, 254–55, 260–62, 274 – conceded by Job 57, 189, 191–92, 194, 210–12, 293, 304 – challenged by the vision 2–3, 17– 19, 86–87, 93–97, 303 – challenged by YHWH 278, 303 – denied by Job 135–36, 139–145, 239–243, 246–47 – in Job’s reception history 286–292 – outside of Job 86–87, 254–55 – undermined by Bildad 183–84, 209–210, 265–66, 303–4 – undermined by the prose tale 281 disgrace 111 displacement of the vision 39–51, 148–150, 153–160, 165–68, 302–3 displacement in Job 25–26, 207–223, 303–5 distance between God and humanity (spatial dualism) 18, 87–88, 183 divine alterity 4 divine anger/wrath 141, 163–64, 186

348

Subject Index

divine appearance 78 divine caprice 24 divine combat 186 divine deception 27–28, 70–75, 80– 84, 97, 142, 154, 163–64, 232, 238, 245, 293, 306 divine discipline 122, 175–77, 252, 300 divine hostility 94, 109, 134, 139, 141, 144, 154, 156, 239, 278, 282 divine incomparability 17–18, 35, 85, 88, 90, 92, 183, 234 divine injustice 6, 40, 139, 180, 243 divine invisibility 140, 186, 279 divine jealousy 164 divine judgment 12, 73–75, 79, 81– 82, 84, 110, 127–28, 132, 155, 164, 172, 238, 260, 276, 295 – inescapable 50, 145 – universal 7, 50, 97 divine justice 131, 203, 227, 243, 255, 265–66, 269–271, 274, 276, 309 divine mercy 46–47 divine mistrust 16, 30–31, 84, 89–92, 97, 136, 141, 184, 234 divine power 57, 79, 149, 184–87, 193–94, 199, 203, 205, 207, 215, 243 266, 293, 301, 306 divine presence 108–113 divine punishment 113 divine purity 40 the divine speeches 275–78 divine supremacy 9–10, 34, 181, 183, 186, 188, 207, 209, 265, 273 divine surveillance 31, 135–37, 142, 242–43, 283, 300 divine testing of mortals 25 divine violence 94, 109, 112 dread 75, 83, 102, 109, 116–17, 154, 170, 190, 194–95, 238, 252, 281, 297–98, 307 dreams 29–30 double entendre 21–23, 40 echoes (literary) 60–61 the east wind 127 Elihu speeches 173–181, 202–3, 273– 75 Elijah 78–79

epistemology 68, 295

105–8, 226–230, 267–

first and second speech cycles 99–146 first-person discourse 4–5, 43, 102, 106–8, 111, 112, 153, 155, 188–90, 298–99 formula of reproof 140 the friends’ responses to the vision 116–133, 161–173, 247–271, 299– 300 futility of human striving 154 Gerechtigkeitsredaktion (righteousnessredaction) 36–37 heavenly bodies 91, 182, 184 the Holy One 137–38, 239 the holy ones 119, 123, 161–62, 182, 249, 256 hubris 127–28, 263 human choice 121 human exaltation 277 human frailty 7, 17, 31, 35, 48, 89, 93, 124, 135, 141, 144–45, 240, 309 human ignorance 96 human lowliness 2, 15–16, 33–36, 85– 86, 88, 92, 97, 136–37, 139, 142, 170, 182–84, 265–66, 278, 298, 308–9 – outside Job 35 human purity 123, 124, 131, 243 human righteousness – challenged by the vision 16–17, 34, 38, 39, 50, 123–25, 144, 276, 298, 309 – elsewhere in the HB 85–86, 309 – possibility of 45–46, 85, 118, 131, 170, 172, 307 hyperbole 88 inherent trouble 154 inner-biblical exegesis 62 intercession 249–240 intertextuality 27, 59–63 irony 20–21, 23, 29–30, 62, 140–41, 189, 216 Jeremiah

73, 79, 156–160

Subject Index Jeremiah’s confessions 82–83, 156– 160, 303 Jewish liturgies 46 Job’s allusions to the vision 133–145, 185–195, 233–247 Job’s closing monologue 194–95 Job’s experience of God 108–10, 112– 13, 143, 299 Job’s final response 278–280 Job’s integrity 45, 280–81, 283–84, 293 Job’s patience 287, 290, 292 Job’s self-descriptions 103–113, 126– 27, 133 Job’s suffering 6, 22, 50, 108, 153, 157, 174, 177, 181, 217, 236, 239, 246, 256, 273, 281–82 the law 259, 264, 267, 307–8 legal confrontation 85–86, 139, 144, 190, 237, 242, 245–46 Leviathan 20, 78, 107, 158, 160, 162, 227, 278 literary influence 59 Majestätsredaktion (majesty-redaction) 204–5 mediator 250, 259 metaprophecy 28, 227 misuse/abuse of forms 231–33 mythological imagery 253 Niedrigkeitsredaktion (lowlinessredaction) 33–37, 202 nightmares 6, 134–35, 137 oath of innocence 246 Old Greek 221–22, 287–290 oracular inquiry 250 P967 220–21 parody 62, 111, 129–131, 135–36, 205, 215, 231–33, 243, 244, 289, 295, 307 personal experience 227–28 primal man 127 primordial wisdom 127, 129, 229, 258, 261, 263–65, 308

349

private revelation 27, 48, 127–28, 130, 132, 226, 248, 256–57 prophecy 128 – lying/deceptive 65, 68, 71, 81, 143 prophetic role 250–52, 256 the prose tale 54, 280–284 protection of the innocent/righteous 17, 25, 118, 128, 161, 289, 298 protection of the wicked 191, 246–47 proverbs 131, 249, 253, 268 provoking God’s anger 163–64 psychological analysis 23–26 quotations 60–63, 116–145, 149, 151– 53, 171–187, 205 Rahab 141, 186, 244 reception history of Job 284–292, 296, 305, 308 reconciliation with God 172, 248 redactional reconstruction 57–58, 201–6 repentance 4, 47, 170, 175, 176, 180– 81, 190, 224, 247, 259 Resheph 121 retribution 24, 34, 39, 48, 179–180, 254, 262, 276–77, 286, 292, 309 – challenged by the vision 49–50 revelation – in Elihu’s speeches 174–75, 180, 273–74 – in the friends’ speeches 48, 112, 126–27, 226–29, 249, 256–59, 264, 266–68, 294–95 – in Job’s speeches 137–38, 226–29, 239, 279–280, 294–95 – in the vision 12–13, 27, 29, 38, 71–74, 79, 83, 84–85, 97, 174, 180 Samuel 81 the Satan 19–21, 79, 90–91, 235, 247, 281–83, 292, 293 secondary insertions/glosses 32–33, 36–37, 173, 298 shame 111 speech introductions 201–2 spirit 75, 76, 79–84, 110–12, 119, 127, 233, 239, 249, 274, 297

350

Subject Index

spirit of falsehood 68, 81–82, 90, 97, 165, 283, 293 storm theophany 76, 275, 291 structure of the dialogues 166, 195– 225, 303–6 surreptitious acquisition of divine wisdom 128, 140, 256–57 terrors 193, 237 Theodotion 285–86, 292 theophany 108, 135 textual relocation 39, 41, 47–49 third speech cycle 57, 149–150, 168– 173, 181–225 – as a compromise between Job and the friends 198–201, 209–210, 215–17, 247, 265–66 – accidentally disrupted 207–214 – intentionally disrupted 214–223 – as the original end to the dialogues 197–201 – as a secondary addition 201–6 tradition (see also “ancestral wisdom”) 226–230, 239, 248, 253–56, 257–59, 260–62, 267–68, 294–95, 299–300 Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang (actconsequence-nexus) 15, 29, 254 universal condemnation 39, 133, 135– 36, 139–142 universal sin 7, 9, 12–14, 16–17, 19, 22, 39, 85–86, 92, 239 universal suffering 12–14, 18, 121, 162 variant literary editions 220–23 the vision – ambiguous/ambivalent 21–24, 26– 27, 37–38, 69, 72, 74, 83, 85, 88, 97, 178, 232–33, 297 – anonymous 79–80 – attributed to Job 39–51, 122–29, 150–68, 174 – biblical background 64–98, 156– 160 – correspondence to Job’s style 100– 113, 298

– displaced 41–42, 43, 47–49, 148– 150, 153–168, 301 – as divine deception 70–75, 82–83, 151, 154, 157, 222, 232, 238, 283, 293 – as divine discipline 175–77, 274 – as divine interjection 38, 234 – as divine judgment 73–74, 79, 82– 84, 97, 151, 154, 238, 242 – as a “foreign body” 37 – formal characteristics 100–103 – frightening 39, 40, 43–44, 68, 102 – literary style 100–115, 153 – misuse of forms 231–33 – modal reading 13–14 – as parody 70 – placement in Job 3 43–44, 48, 153–167, 303–4 – prophetic imagery 70–79 – as a “prophetic vision report” 68, 79, 83, 84, 232–33, 235–36 – as a quotation 40–43, 151–53, 300 – reattributed to Eliphaz 167–68, 219–225, 293–95, 307–9 – as a redactional addition 147–48, 298 – as revelation 12–13, 27, 29, 38, 71–74, 79, 83, 84–85, 97, 174, 180 – role in the dialogue (summarized) 223–25, 269–271, 297–309 – self-description of the visionary 5, 41, 108–113, 126, 299 – structure 67–68 – subversive 26, 29, 85, 95, 97, 222, 232, 235–36, 297 – uncanny 40 visions in the Hebrew Bible 65–67, 72–73 – of the heavenly court 65–67 – “prophetic vision report” genre 65–68 – symbolic 65–66 wisdom dialogue 199 wisdom poem 194, 224 word of God 65, 67, 80, 83, 128, 137– 38, 140, 157, 187, 261, 266, 267