Thread by @JamesBejon

THREAD: The Structure of the Book of Job.

SUB-TITLE: ‘Who is this who decomposes texts without knowledge?’

The book of Job has a sophisticated and tightly integrated structure,

which illuminates many aspects of its plot.

#BibleStudy pays!

Let’s start at the start though.

We’re introduced to the book’s main character with its fifth word: Job.

Job is a man of great piety (1.1) and great prosperity (1.2–3).

As such, Job’s existence poses a question, viz.,

Why is Job such an extraordinary individual?

More specifically, What is the relationship between Job’s piety and prosperity?

Is Job pious because he’s prosperous?

Or is Job prosperous because he’s pious?

(Or might the causal relationship between piety and prosperity not be so simple?)

Such are the very questions Satan is about to raise with God, which he does in 1.9.

Satan first enters YHWH’s presence, however, in 1.6.

His dialogue with YHWH follows a fixed pattern:

🔹 YHWH speaks (1.7a),
🔹 Satan answers (1.7b),
🔹 YHWH speaks again (1.8),
🔹 Satan answers (in the form of a wager) (1.9), and
🔹 YHWH accepts Satan’s wager (1.12).

As such, YHWH and Satan’s dialogue has a fivefold structure: ABABA.

The next dialogue between YHWH and Satan (cp. 2.2–6) follows exactly the same pattern.

🔹 YHWH speaks (2.2a),
🔹 Satan answers (2.2b),
🔹 YHWH speaks again (2.3),
🔹 Satan answers (in the form of a wager) (2.4), and
🔹 YHWH accepts Satan’s wager (2.6).

Note: YHWH is never said to ‘answer’ (ענה) Satan in the book of Job, since he is not answerable to his creation.

The five-part structure outlined above is significant for at least a couple of reasons.

First, it opens and closes with the words of YHWH. As such, it emphasises YHWH’s role as the first mover in the book of Job’s events.

Second, while the structure outlined above has a certain symmetry (ABABA), it also has a clear sense of direction.

That is to say, it does not merely oscillate (‘there and back again’); it is also *linear* (ABCDE).

In Line 1, YHWH initiates a dialogue with Satan.

In Line 2, Satan responds;

In Line 4, things come to a head as Satan seeks to make a wager with God, which leaves us anxious to see what will transpire.

And, in Line 5, to our surprise, YHWH *accepts* Satan’s wager.

——————

But the fivefold structure outlined above doesn’t only underlie YHWH and Satan’s dialogue;

it also underlies Job’s prologue as a whole:

🔹 Scene 1: Life in Uz; all is well (1.1–5).
🔹 Sc. 2: Dialogue in heaven (1.6–12, …ויהי היום).
🔹 Sc. 3: Disaster on earth (1.13–21, …ויהי היום).
🔹 Sc. 4: Further dialogue in heaven (2.1–5, …ויהי היום).
🔹 Sc. 5: Further disasters on earth (2.6–3.1).

The structure outlined above is significant for at least three reasons.

First, Scenes 4 and 5 of Job’s prologue are not delimited by a clear textual marker/boundary (i.e., by the normal ויהי היום),

which is instructive, since, in the aftermath of Scene 4, Satan leaves his previous sphere of influence/operation (i.e., the realm of heaven).

He no longer merely *observes* events on the earth, but, much to Job’s dismay, *acts* on the earth (cp. Rev. 12.12).

As such, the boundary-line between heaven and earth becomes fuzzy,

which is reflected in the absence of a clear boundary between Scenes 4 and 5.

Second, the ABABA structure of Job’s prologue emphasises how little Job knows.

Job’s experiences are limited to the As of ABABA (i.e., to Scenes 1, 3, and 5).

From Job’s perspective, his trials begin on the earth (in Scene 3, with a Sabean raid: 1.15).

And, from Job’s *friends’* point of view, his trials must be understood in light of Scene 1, i.e., in light of Job’s past.

But, from heaven’s perspective, things look very different. YHWH and his heavenly court are able to see the whole picture.

Third, the ABABA structure of Job’s prologue highlights the central issue which underlies ch. 3–37’s debate.

At the close of Scene 5, we *expect* to be taken back up to heaven’s courtroom to get heaven’s perspective on events (in accord with the prologue’s ABABA structure).

But we are not. We are instead left ‘among the ashes’ in Uz, where Job and his friends debate his plight while heaven remains oddly silent.

——————

A fivefold structure is, therefore, evident in Scenes 2 and 4, as well as in Job’s prologue as a whole.

And the same structure is evident in Scene 3, where four distinct disasters befall Job.

Like the structures outlined above, Scene 3 embodies a sense of oscilation (ABABA) insofar as it oscilates between ‘human disasters’ (i.e., foreign invaders) and ‘acts of God’ (i.e., a fire and a great wind).

More notable, however, is the scene’s sense of direction/crescendo (ABCDE).

In 1.14, Job receives his first item of news. The Sabeans, he is told, have taken his cattle and slain his servants.

Then, before Job is able to respond--i.e., before we learn how Job will react--, a *second* messenger arrives, who brings Job news of a second disaster.

And then, before Job is able to respond, a *third* messenger arrives, and finally a fourth.

Hence, as Scene 3 unfolds, our sense of expectation/anticipation steadily heightens,

while the repetition of the words רק אני לבדי = ‘I alone am left’ anticipate the exile/isolation about to befall Job.

At the same time, the numbers involved in the Scene increase.

The first disaster originates from a single source (cp. 1.15’s reference to שבא = ‘Sheba’ rather than the expected שבאים).

The second comes from a dual source (שמים = ‘the heavens’—a dual noun).

The third involves ‘three companies’ of raiders.

And the fourth smites ‘the four corners’ of Job’s oldest son’s house.

Hence, at the end of Act 4, we are left in a state of suspense, eager to find out how Job will react.

In Act 5, we do find out. And, suffice it to say, Job’s reaction to what has befallen him is nothing short of extraordinary (per the climax of our other fivefold structures).

Sheba has ‘fallen’ on Job’s possessions;

fire has ‘fallen’ from heaven;

Job’s house has ‘fallen’ on his children;

and now, in Act 5, *Job* falls to the ground.

Yet, remarkably, he does so in worship to his Maker.

No less remarkable is Job’s pronouncement in 1.21, which again assumes a fivefold structure.

Like our other fivefold structures, it combines a sense of alternation (ABABA)—e.g., A = ‘Naked I came forth’ vs. B = ‘Naked I will return’—with a sense of direction/crescendo (ABCDE).

And its fourth line creates suspense in anticipation of the (extraordinary) conclusion to come:

🔹 ‘Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb’, Job says,
🔹 ‘And naked I will return there.’
🔹 ‘The LORD has given’,
🔹 ‘And the LORD has taken away.’

These first four pronouncements are statements of fact.

As such, Job’s reaction could go either way.

Yet Job’s pronouncement in Line 5 is nothing short of extraordinary:

🔹 ‘Blessed be the name of the LORD!’

——————

With the above backdrop in mind, the book of Job can plausibly be analysed in terms of seven scenes:

🔹 Scene 1: Life in Uz; all is well (1.1–5).
🔹 Sc. 2: Dialogue in heaven (1.6–12).
🔹 Sc. 3: Disaster on earth (1.13–21).
🔹 Sc. 4: Further dialogue in heaven (2.1–5).

🔹 Sc. 5: Further disasters on earth (2.6–3.1).
🔹 Sc. 6: Dialogue on earth (3.2–42.8).
🔹 Scene 7: Life in Uz; all is well once more (42.9–17).

What, then, can be said about the structure/nature of Scenes 6 and 7?

Well, at first blush, the structure of Scene 6 appears to be quite irregular, since different people speak (and don’t speak) in different ‘rounds’ of Job’s conversations.

Yet, if we allow the textual marker ויאמר to determine our Scene’s structure, a regular sixfold pattern emerges (since the marker ויאמר divides some of Job and Elihu’s speeches up into multiple sections):

Note: Of particular interest here is the fuzzy boundary-line between Act 4 and what comes after it. Just as (in Job’s prologue) Satan leaves his previous sphere of influence/operation at the end of a fourth scene/act, so too does YHWH.

Act 5 then resumes our familiar fivefold pattern:

🔹 YHWH speaks (40.1),
🔹 Job repents (40.3),
🔹 YHWH speaks again (40.6),
🔹 Job again repents (42.1), and
🔹 YHWH speaks to Job’s friends (42.7).

…where we have alternation (ABABA) in terms of the identity of the speakers (YHWH, Job, YHWH, Job, …), combined with a clear sense of direction.

And, as usual, Line 5 involves a strong element of surprise, since YHWH doesn’t reveal his view of events to Job, but to *Eliphaz*.

Moreover, YHWH requires Eliphaz and his two friends to find Job and ask him to offer seven (propitiatory) sacrifices on their behalf.

But why is such a procedure necessary?

Why can’t Job’s friends offer the necessary sacrifices themselves?

A couple of reasons present themselves.

First, because Job’s restoration doesn’t merely involve the restoration of his possessions.

Harsh (and false) words have been spoken, and, as a result, not only possessions need to be restored, but *friendships* too.

Nothing repairs a friendship like a confession of sin and a request for prayer.

Second, because YHWH wants to give Job reassurance.

When did Job last offer up seven sacrifices?

The answer is ‘In Scene 1’, when Job offered seven sacrifices to God on behalf of his (seven) sons (1.5).

Yet one could hardly blame Job if he had come to regard those sacrifices as ineffective (since his sons perished in ch. 1’s disasters).

The events of ch. 42 may, therefore, have been intended to reassure Job.

If his sacrifices turned out to atone for his friends’ sins, then his past sacrifices must have atoned for his sons’ sins.

And that, I suggest, is why Job only ends up with seven sons at the end of book rather than fourteen.

While YHWH provides Job with twice as many cattle as he lost (e.g., with 14,000 sheep compared to the previous 7,000), YHWH does not provide Job with fourteen sons.

Job’s sons do not need to be ‘doubled’ (and nor, for that matter, do his daughters), since, unlike his cattle, they are not permanently lost.

They will rise alongside him in the resurrection (19.25–26).

A FINAL NOTE:

As can be seen, the book of Job has a sophisticated and tightly integrated structure.

Of course, its main power and beauty lies in the particularities of its contents. And its main challenge lies in practical application rather than exegesis.

But Job’s structure is nevertheless an important aspect of its message,

and the book’s ‘irreducibility’ gives us reason to view it as the product of a single author rather than of piece-by-piece evolution.

Like God’s creation, each individual part of the book of Job seems to have been planned with the whole in mind, and would leave a notable hole in its absence.

THE END.

P.S. Pdf version:

academia.edu/41599112/