Enemy or Friend?

When we think about meaning and purpose in loss, we have to come to terms somehow with the problems of pain, suffering and evil in the world.  So I want to whack away at that for a while with some material based on the biblical book of Job.  This could take a while, so hang on, friends.

“I come to know myself truly as a spiritual being by knowing God.  I come to know who I truly am by being known by God.  I come to know others by seeing in them the reflected image of God, the Other.  I come to know this Other when meeting God I others, sister, brother, neighbor, stranger, friend or enemy.”--David Augsburger, Dissident Discipleship, page 22.

Scholars debate the date of composition, the location of the author, the cultural context and the overall themes of the book of Job.  The basic tale is set in patriarchal times—the era of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  The issues addressed in the book, however, seem to resonate much more with Jews after the Babylonian Exile and during the colonial times leading up to the Roman dominion and status as a province.  I will treat the book of Job in its final state as a relatively late document in the canon.  

It is unclear if Job is to be seen as a pious Gentile, a proto-Jew or the generic human sufferer.  I will treat Job in a variety of ways—individual sufferer, representative figure for post-exilic Judaism, an image of human beings in a broken world—depending on text and context.  The state of the text itself leads to many questions as well.  No book in the Christian Bible has more footnotes due to questionable translation than the book of Job.  A few of those translational ambiguities are critical to the interpretation of the book.

Let’s not worry, therefore, about whether Job was an actual person or a character in an extended parable.  The latter is the more likely scenario, given the “once upon a time” nature of the beginning of the book: “There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.”  We don’t know where the land of Uz was (although it may have been a euphemism for the land of Edom, according to the Oxford Annotated reading notes).  In this discussion, we will treat Job as the main character in this account, and we will take seriously what happens to him and those around him in the story.

Job’s name is really the Hebrew name ‘iyyobh.  While this was probably a common name in the ancient world, the name is also closely related to the Hebrew word for “enemy.”  That enemy can be personal or national, singular or communal.  The noun form of the word has the sense of “enmity” or “hostility.”  It may or may not be that Job is named in this way to describe his relationship with God.  Scholars differ on this issue.  Most think that the connection between Job’s name and being an enemy of God does not exist.

I’m not so sure that this connection is so accidental.  For example, Job identifies himself as God’s enemy within the text of the book.  

In chapter thirteen, Job gives a speech that he imagines he might deliver as he argues his case before God,  “But I would speak to the Almighty,” Job declares, “and I desire to argue my case with God” (Job 13:3).  In verse twenty-four he puts this hypothetical question to God: “Why do you hide your face, and count me as your enemy?”  The word used in that verse for “enemy” is a form of the word that produces the name “Job.”  

In chapter thirty-three, Elihu quotes Job’s own words back to him: “Look,” Elihu echoes Job, “[God] finds occasions against me; [God] counts me as [God’s] enemy…” (Job 33:10).  Those seem to be some pretty direct identifications—at least on Job’s part—that God sees Job as the enemy.

In addition, Job’s poems are filled with descriptions of God as Job’s hostile adversary.  In Job 6:4, our friend asserts that the Almighty has shot him with poisoned arrows.  In Job 7:20, he describes God as the “watcher of humanity,” but the Hebrew word in that verse for “watcher” can have the sense of “besieger.”  

In chapter sixteen, Job mixes the images of enemy and predator as he describes God.  He focuses on the image of enemy in verses 12 through 14.  Job claims that God sets him up as a target for his archers to practice on.  He says that God “slashes open my kidneys, and shows no mercy; he pours out my gall on the ground.”  Ancient warriors routinely disemboweled their adversaries to make sure that they were really and truly and fully dead.  In the next verse Job describes how God “bursts upon me again and again” and “rushes at me like a warrior.”

The warrior image is deepened in chapter nineteen, verses 11 and 12.  In those verses Job says it directly: God “counts me as his adversary.”  Job means an adversary in battle, that is, an enemy.  We can see that in the next verse.  “[God’s] troops come on together; they have thrown up siege works against me, and encamp around my tent.”  

Job believes that he is under profound attack.  He believes that the attack comes from God.  He believes that he, Job, is defenseless against such an attack.  And he believes that he is the innocent victim in such an attack.  I found in Job a kindred spirit in some of the darkest moments of my bereavement.  His story is in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, perhaps, for precisely that purpose.