The question of undeserved suffering has plagued humanity for as long as we have written records, as is demonstrated by several ancient Mesopotamian literary compositions going back to Sumerian times. Today too we wonder why bad things happen to good people. The book of Job raises this issue in the person of Job, a pious and blameless man who suffers unspeakable tragedies. However, the question of why Job suffers leads to an even more important question: Where can wisdom be found?

Structure, Genre, and Message

The structure of the book helps the reader understand its genre and message:

I. Prose Prologue: A Conversation in Heaven and Job’s Testing (1:1–2:13)

II. Poetic Debate: Who Is Wise? (3:1–42:6)

A. Job’s lament (3:1–26)

B. The debate between Job and his three friends (4:1–31:40)

C. Elihu’s claim to wisdom (32:1–37:24)

D. Yahweh’s speech and Job’s repentance (38:1–42:6)

III. Prose Epilogue: Resolutions in Blessing (42:7–17)

The genre of the book is a debate, the topic being the nature and source of wisdom. The various parts of the book contribute to this debate.

I. Prose prologue: a conversation in heaven and Job’s testing (1:1–2:13). The first two chapters introduce most of the main characters and the plot complication. First on the scene is Job himself. He is introduced as the perfect wise man: “This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil” (1:1). This assessment is repeated by the next two major characters, none other than God himself (1:8) and even Job’s opponent, “Satan” (1:9–10). The latter, though, believes that Job is motivated by the fact that he receives rewards for his obedience. Take away Job’s family, prosperity, and eventually his health, Satan argues, and Job will crumble and grumble.

We know who God is, but who is this Satan? It is unlikely that Satan is the devil. After all, what would the devil be doing in heaven, and why would God listen to him? Also, the Hebrew prefixes the definite article to “Satan” (hassatan), so a literal translation is “the Satan.” The Hebrew verb satan means “to accuse,” and that is how we are to understand the term in question here; he is “the accuser.” Indeed, the book of Job has the form of a certain type of debate or disputation, a courtroom scene, and the Satan is an angel who takes the place of the prosecuting attorney.

The Satan persuades God to first take away family and wealth from Job. Even so, Job maintains his innocence and does not complain against God. Unsatisfied, the Satan goes further and persuades God to take away Job’s health. Still, however, Job persists in his proper attitude toward God.

At the end of the prologue, Job—though he is suffering—is in a good place. He is still innocent and has not complained. We also hear of Job’s three friends, who move in to offer sympathy and comfort. They sit there with him for seven days without a word.

II. Poetic debate: who is wise? (3:1–42:6). The body of the book is a debate among Job and his friends, composed as poetry.

A. Job’s lament (3:1–26). Job is the first to speak, and what he says unsettles his friends. His suffering has reached the point where he wants to die. While his speech is properly understood as a lament, it contrasts with the laments of the psalms (e.g., Ps. 69). The latter are directed toward God; Job speaks about God but not to him. The laments of the psalms typically end with a note of optimism (Ps. 88 is an exception); Job’s does not.

B. The debate between Job and his three friends (4:1–31:40). Job’s lament triggers the debate. After Job complains about God, the three friends feel obligated to speak in defense of God’s integrity. The debate has three cycles, with each of the three friends speaking in turn, each followed by a response from Job. The third cycle breaks down with a speech by Eliphaz (chap. 22) and a short one by Bildad (chap. 25), but no speech by Zophar. The friends have run out of steam.

After all, each of the three repeats the same basic argument: if you sin, then you suffer; therefore, if you suffer, then you must have sinned. Since Job was suffering, he must be a sinner. To escape his suffering, he needs to repent (4:7–11; 11:13–20). Job, however, knows that he has not sinned. But this creates a theological problem for him, since he too believes in the same theology of retribution held by the three friends. Thus, in his mind, God is unjust (9:21–24). Accordingly, his solution is to find God and present his case before him (notice the legal language again [23:2–7]).

Although the subject of their debate is Job’s suffering, the heart of it concerns wisdom. Who is wise? Who has the correct insight into Job’s suffering? Both Job and the friends set themselves up as sources of wisdom and ridicule the wisdom of the other (11:12; 12:1–3, 12; 13:12; 15:1–13). The question “Who is wise?” dominates the book.

The interactive debate between Job and his friends ends without resolution to this question. The friends have repeated their arguments many times but have not convinced Job, so they grow silent. In chapter 28 Job suddenly changes tone in a way that has puzzled interpreters for a long time. Rather than complaining or asserting his own wisdom, Job beautifully proclaims God as the sole source of wisdom, anticipating the conclusion. However, this attitude does not hold beyond the chapter, since in chapters 30–31 Job returns to bitter complaint and protests of his innocence. To the end of this section, he maintains his innocence and a sense of God’s injustice. He wants an audience with God to set him straight (31:35–37). Job will soon learn that he should be careful about what he wishes for.

C. Elihu’s claim to wisdom (32:1–37:24). Here a new character surprisingly emerges from the background. Elihu has observed the debate silently, but now he feels compelled to speak. He is young and thus has deferred to the wisdom of the elderly, but he has been sorely disappointed. Now he realizes that wisdom is not always a matter of age, but comes from “the spirit in a person” (32:8). The reader expects a new argument from this brash young man, but instead Job is treated to another blast of the retribution theology of the three friends: Job suffers because he is a sinner (34:11, 25–27, 37).

Elihu represents another type of person who claims wisdom. Rather than age, he believes the spirit in a person gives wisdom. However, he comes up with the same old descriptions and solutions. This viewpoint is critiqued by silence; he is ignored. No one responds to his unpersuasive opinion.

D. Yahweh’s speech and Job’s repentance (38:1–42:6). When we left Job at the end of chapter 31, he had expressed his wish for an audience with God. Now he gets his wish. God appears in a whirlwind, an indication of his displeasure, and challenges Job’s purported wisdom: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?” (38:2). God then bombards Job with a series of questions that he cannot possibly answer, since he is not God. God also describes how he is the one who distributes and withholds power and wisdom to his creatures.

He never addresses the reasons for Job’s suffering or the question of suffering in general. That is not the main purpose of the book. He asserts his wisdom, thus answering the question of the book: “Who is wise?” Only God is wise. What is the proper response to God’s wisdom and power? Repentance and submission, and thus Job responds two times (40:3–5; 42:1–6).

III. Prose epilogue: resolutions in blessing (42:7–17). The epilogue raises a number of interesting questions for the interpreter. After Job repents, God restores his health and prosperity beyond what he had enjoyed at the beginning of the book. Does this not concede to the argument of the three friends and Elihu? All along they have been urging him to repent and be restored. However, such an interpretation misses a key point. Job has not repented of any sin that had led to his suffering in the first place. No, he has passed that test. However, as time wore on, he had grown impatient with God. He never takes the counsel of his wife to “curse God and die” (2:9), but he does question God’s justice without ever breaking relationship.

A second issue concerns God’s statement that Job has “spoken the truth about me” (42:8). Did God not just spend two chapters criticizing him? The best way to understand this comment is to understand it as God’s affirmation not of every word that Job has spoken about him, but rather of how Job has responded to God in the end. After all, he had never abandoned God, even in his darkest hour.

Historical Background

The book of Job is anonymous, and there is no statement in the book concerning date of writing. The setting of the story of Job is early. Job’s hometown of Uz is outside the promised land, leading to the conclusion that Job himself was not an Israelite. This fact, along with the way his wealth is described, suggests a time before God narrowed the covenant in relationship to Abraham and his descendants. However, the date of the story does not tell us when it was written, and indications within the book are mixed, some pointing to an early date and some to a late date. The dating of the book makes no difference to its interpretation.

Ancient Near Eastern Background

The ancient Near East produced a number of compositions that explore the issue of undeserved suffering. These texts come from Sumer, Egypt, Ugarit, and Babylonia, but the two that are most similar to Job come from Babylonia.

The first, Ludlul bel nemeqi (“I will praise the Lord of wisdom”), is often referred to as the Babylonian Job. The main character of the story, Subshi-meshre-shakkan, is a sufferer who complains about his situation because he has been blameless in his devotion to god and king. He feels that he does not deserve the suffering that has come upon him. The form of the book is a monologue, and the focus is on his restoration by Marduk. He never really questions the gods about his problems. The best guess concerning the time of its composition is the middle of the second millennium BC.

The second text is the Babylonian Theodicy, likely written about 1000 BC. Formally, this composition is closer to Job in that it is a dialogue between a sufferer and a friend who represents the orthodox piety of Babylon. The sufferer questions the justice of the gods. The friend cautions him against blasphemy, but in the end he comes around to the view that the gods have made humanity perverse.

The existence of these and other texts related to Job does not necessarily mean that Job was directly influenced by them. Although the Babylonian Theodicy’s dialogue form may have suggested a literary vehicle to the author, the fact that all peoples in all times and places struggle with undeserved suffering is explanation enough for the similarities.

Contemporary Significance

Even today, unthinking people may attribute the suffering and poverty of others to their sin. Indeed, those who suffer may blame themselves and their actions for their bad circumstances. True, the Bible teaches that sin has consequences, some of which offenders suffer in this life. But the Bible is also consistent in its message that sometimes bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. The book of Job reminds us that not all suffering is the result of sin.

The book’s response to suffering is not to give a logical answer to the question of why people suffer, but rather to simply assert the power and wisdom of God over against it. We may not know why we suffer, but we do know that God is in charge and knows what he is doing. The NT gives God’s ultimate answer to pain in life: Jesus Christ, God himself, who suffered and died for the sins of his people. Jesus both compares and contrasts with Job, since Jesus’ suffering was voluntary and undertaken on behalf of other people. It is not surprising that the early church adopted the practice of reading the book of Job during Easter Week.