James Bejon 🇮🇱 Profile picture
Jan 11, 2020 51 tweets 8 min read Read on X
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): Image
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/

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with James Bejon 🇮🇱

James Bejon 🇮🇱 Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @JamesBejon

Aug 18
THREAD: Theology in Syntax (🧵)

Ephesians 1.3–10 is a majestic statement. It opens in the heavenly realms, before the foundation of the world, and concludes in the fulness of time, with all things in heaven and earth united in Christ—a grand sweep of divine history. Image
It is an awesome and extraordinary declaration of God’s plans. And its syntax matches its message.
Scattered throughout its sweep of history are references to what God has done for us—“blessed us”, “chosen us”, “predestined us”, etc.

Just as we find ourselves caught up in the syntax of Ephesian 1, so we find ourselves caught up in God’s plans.
Read 10 tweets
Jul 20
THREAD: Job 28—A Journey into the Mines

The text of Job 28 is a beautiful composition. It reveals important truths about the nature of wisdom and at the same time paints an exquisite picture of the book of Job’s central theme. Image
For a brief intro to the book, see below:

Back in chapter 13, Job made an important statement. “If you would only be silent for a while”, he told his friends, “it would result in your wisdom” (Job 13.5).

Well, here in chapter 28, that statement takes on a prophetic character.
Read 29 tweets
Jul 19
THREAD: Job the Righteous Sufferer

The Biblical narrative contains numerous examples of ‘righteous sufferers’—men who suffer not as a result of their own sin, but because of and to some extent *for* the benefit of others.

Joseph, Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah—the list goes on. Image
The most dramatic OT example of a righteous sufferer, however, is surely Job.
— Job was not merely a good man; he was the most blameless and upright man on earth (Job 1.8).

— Job was not merely a rich man; he was the richest man in the east (1.3).

— And Job did not merely come upon hard times; he lost *everything* (aside from his integrity),…
Read 24 tweets
May 17
THREAD: The Trinity in Creation

Scripture opens with an account of a triune God who creates the heavens and earth over the course of a seven-day week.

What’s the connection between these numbers? Could a triune God have created the world over any period of time he chose? Image
No doubt he could. But a sevenfold week seems particularly apt. Here’s why.
Given three conceptual entities, seven sets naturally emerge, or eight if we include the empty set. Image
Read 17 tweets
Apr 18
<SCARLET THREAD>
Blood in the Biblical Narrative

As Christians, it’s natural for us to associate bloodshed with redemption. In light of the Gospel, the idea seems intuitive.

That bloodshed can bring about redemption, however, is an unusual idea,… Image
…which is revealed to us *gradually* as the Biblical narrative unfolds.
Blood is first mentioned in Scripture in the story of Cain and Abel, where (as we’d expect) it’s connected with judgment.
Read 17 tweets
Mar 25
THREAD: Joseph, Jesus, & the Descent to Egypt

Joseph is a well known type/picture of Christ, so it’s natural for us (as Christians) to want us to map his experiences directly onto Jesus’s, all of which is well and good… Image
…But we can learn a great deal from a contemplation of Joseph’s life in its original (OT) context. For a start, let’s have a think about Genesis’s general flow.
As the book unfolds, God chooses out a line of promise. One by one its offshoots are peeled away as the story zooms in God’s chosen people (Israel).
Read 33 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(