Job

Elmer B. Smick, Tremper Longman III, David E. Garland

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780310531838
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Continuing a Gold Medallion Award-winning legacy, the completely revised Expositor's Bible Commentary puts world-class biblical scholarship in your hands.

A staple for students, teachers, and pastors worldwide, The Expositor's Bible Commentary (EBC) offers comprehensive yet succinct commentary from scholars committed to the authority of the Holy Scriptures. The EBC uses the New International Version of the Bible, but the contributors work from the original Hebrew and Greek languages and refer to other translations when useful.

Each section of the commentary includes:

• An introduction: background information, a short bibliography, and an outline
• An overview of Scripture to illuminate the big picture
• The complete NIV text
• Extensive commentary
• Notes on textual questions, key words, and concepts
• Reflections to give expanded thoughts on important issues

The series features 56 contributors, who:

• Believe in the divine inspiration, complete trustworthiness, and full authority of the Bible
• Have demonstrated proficiency in the biblical book that is their specialty
• Are committed to the church and the pastoral dimension of biblical interpretation
• Represent geographical and denominational diversity
• Use a balanced and respectful approach toward marked differences of opinion
• Write from an evangelical viewpoint

For insightful exposition, thoughtful discussion, and ease of use—look no further than The Expositor's Bible Commentary.

Text and Exposition

I. PROLOGUE (1:1–2:13)

OVERVIEW

The Prologue contains some epical features of a story passed on from generation to generation (cf. Sarna, 13–25). This does not necessarily remove it from the realm of history any more than the poetic features of historical psalms, such as Psalms 78 and 106, make them unhistorical. But it does help us appreciate the stylized and therefore identical phraseology of the two interviews with the Accuser (the Satan; 1:6–8, 12; 2:1–3, 6–7) and the consummate skill of the storyteller, who by repeating the simple phrase “while he was still speaking” (1:16, 17, 18), creates an effective tragic climax. Exegetical awareness of such features can be of value to the preacher and expositor.

The Prologue introduces us to Job as a man of faith and shows how his fortunes on earth are directed by heavenly forces beyond his control. But its full purpose lies even deeper. It is a deliberately planned foundation on which the spiritual message of the book is based. Without the Prologue, the Job of the Dialogues and Monologues might justly be considered a man of insufferable self-righteousness, and the reader would be left without a heavenly perspective much as in the other theodicies of the ancient Near East. With this Prologue the purpose of the book is clarified—to show that in a world where evil is a reality, good people may appear to suffer unjustly, but that such injustice is precipitated by the Accuser and, though permitted by God, it is an expression of God’s total confidence that the faith of his servant will triumph.

Job, then, is like the guiltless sufferer in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. His attitude in the Prologue is an OT anticipation of the truth that God’s servants are honored when they are “counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name” (Ac 5:41). Job starts with the triumphant spirit of the postresurrection disciples (1:20–21; 2:10); but like the prophet Jeremiah (20:7–9) and that greatest of prophets, John the Baptist (Lk 7:18–20), Job, as a man of like passions, is not above a struggle for faith. This is what creates the dramatic power of the book and provides courage for all faithful sufferers who also struggle to understand the mysteries of divine providence.

The Prologue consists of a series of vignettes. The opening scene introduces Job in his domestic felicity (1:1–5), and the closing scene introduces his three friends, who are moved to an extravagant display of mourning over the extent of Job’s suffering (2:11–13). Between these two sections, the scenes shift back and forth from heaven to earth, unveiling the secret purpose for it all—a purpose unknown to Job.

A. Job’s Felicity (1:1–5)

1In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. 2He had seven sons and three daughters, 3and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

4His sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular custom.

COMMENTARY

1–5 Job is presented as a blameless and upright man who worships (fears) God and shuns evil and whose life is crowned with prosperity. This way of describing Job uses vocabulary and phraseology that permeates the book of Proverbs. Fearing the Lord and shunning evil (v.1) are the controlling principles of wisdom (28:28). Although the author does not use the term wisdom (ḥokmâ) here, this repeated description of Job (1:1, 8; 2:3) labels him a truly wise man. The insertion of an excursus on wisdom in chapter 28 appears to be a deliberate structural feature of the book. Placed between the three cycles of dialogues and the three monologues, it tells the reader how a man so renowned for his wisdom cannot take it for granted. Wisdom is the essence of true religion in this OT literary genre.

That Job is “blameless” (tām) and “upright” (yāšār) should not be construed to imply he is sinless (cf. 13:26; 14:16–17). The former usually refers to a person’s spiritual maturity and the integrity (purity) of his inner being. The latter, meaning “straight, right,” is used in many contexts dealing with human behavior that is in line with God’s ways. Together they provide an idiomatic way to describe Job’s high moral character. As the book goes on to point out, Job is not completely and utterly devoid of fault, but his sin does not account for the incredible suffering he endures.

Job lives in Uz, a land somewhere east of Canaan on the edge of the desert (vv.1, 19). It is almost certainly to be identified with a city in Edom (La 4:21), which was renowned for its wisdom (see the mocking of the vaunted wisdom of Edom in Jer 49:7). He lives in an area where farming could be carried on (v.14) but is also near a town (29:7). In v.3 Job’s wealth is described in terms similar to those used of the patriarchs, the stress being on animals and servants (Ge 12:16). Job is greater (richer) than any of “the people of the East,” another indication that Uz is in Edom. This shows he was a well-known sage among the easterners. Such easterners may be contrasted with the Mediterranean people who came from the West, such as the Philistines.

Verse 5 reveals that Job, like the patriarchs, functions as a priest for his family. He takes his sacrificial obligation seriously, viewing it as expiation for sin. To Job this includes even sins of the heart, for he makes special offerings just in case his sons have secretly cursed God. The matter of cursing or not cursing God becomes a key theme in the development of this drama.

NOTES

1 The idiom

(ʾîš hāyâ, “there lived a man”) indicates that the story has no connection with any earlier event. It is the Hebrew way to begin a totally independent narrative (Dhorme, 29). Clines (Job 1–20, 9–10) points out that the specific manner by which Job is introduced (lit., “there was a man . . .”) is only paralleled in parables (2Sa 12:1) and fables in the Bible. He also indicates that this does not decide the issue whether or not Job is a real person, but rather is a way of showing that he is not a part of the mainstream of Israel’s redemptive-historical story.

Genesis 10:22–23; 22:21; and 1 Chronicles 1:17 tie

(ʿûṣ, “Uz”) to the Arameans, but Genesis 36:28; Jeremiah 25:19–21; and Lamentations 4:21 tie it to Edom. The conflict may only be apparent since Genesis 10 (cf. 1Ch 1) is a table of nations, and Genesis 22:21 deals with Uz before the birth of Esau, the progenitor of the Edomites. Since, as Delitzsch notes, the Arabic name of Esau is ʿîṣ, Uz may be the place in what is now North Arabia where the two cultures (Aramean and Edomite) met or divided from a common origin. Uṣṣa in Shalmaneser III’s annals is undoubtedly the same place.

5

(ûbēr^akû, GK 1385; lit. “and blessed”; NIV, “and cursed”) is a euphemism by the original writer, not a later scribe (so Pope, 8). For similar use of original euphemisms (cf. 2Sa 12:14) in Egyptian documents, see K. A. Kitchen, Ancient Orient and Old Testament (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1966), 166 (cf. Job 1:11; 2:5, 9; 1Ki 21:10, 13; Ps 10:3).

B. Job Tested (1:6–2:13)

1. Satan’s Accusations of Job (1:6–12)

6One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. 7The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.”

8Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you conside...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Job
• Introduction
• I. PROLOGUE (1:1–2:13)
• II. THE DIALOGUE-DISPUTE (3:1–27:23)
• III. INTERLUDE ON WISDOM (28:1–28)
• IV. THE MONOLOGUES (29:1–42:6)
• V. THE EPILOGUE (42:7–17)