ninesixteen

After the opening chapters where Satan and God discuss Job’s faithfulness and God allows the trials of Job to commence, we are briskly guided through the destruction of Job’s family and wealth, until we land at the arrival of Job’s friends. There we, as readers, are allowed an in-depth account of the “trial” of YHWH. As the book of Job unfolds However, I found the narrative looking more and more like a powwow and less and less like a courtroom.
While the footnotes alerted me that Job was using a courtroom lingo, I could not help but see the group gathered up around a fire sitting back and having a harsh heart to heart. Job’s friends are not ruthless and harsh men who seem to lavish unending slander and accusations on Job (as the persecution would in a court room), rather they appear to be men who love and cherish their relationship with Job, who in this midst of Job’s suffering attempted to follow the logic of their theology and find the causal sin. They could not accept that their theology did not rightfully account for Job’s unmerited suffering and thus began to engage Job in one of those uneasy “we need to talk” discussions.
We are told that their campfire powwow began after seven days of that awkward silence which precedes some of the most difficult conversations one can have. Finally, Job voices his frustration and reaches out for the comfort of his friends. Instead, he is met with a calling to admit sin and repent. While the dialogue centers on Job as he examines and protests the puzzle of human suffering the most shocking part of the text is found in chapter 16 when he describes God as a lion tearing into his prey. “God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes…He seized me by the neck and crushed me…again and again he bursts upon me; he rushes at me like a warrior.” (vs 9-14)
This depiction of God as a merciless lion seeking to devour its prey is a startling text. After meditating on Job’s words I was reminded of C.S. Lewis’ The Horse and It’s Boy. In the book a beast chases the two main characters during the night, stalks them when weary, and mauls one of them. This terrifying beast continues to hunt the horse and his boy as they flee for Narnia till the end of the book, when they have a final encounter. In their last encounter the horse has fled toward Narnia and the boy finds himself standing face to face with the Lion. Aslan, reveals Himself as the beast in the night and explains to the boy that while he chased the horse and the boy he did all this, out of love, in order to push the two travelers onward and to steer them from danger.
While the depiction of God in Job 16 was not meant to reveal God’s goodness and grace but rather his fierce wrath One can not help but notice the similarities in structure. Both the boy and Job are preyed on by the lion and just as the boy drops his charge against the beast at the end of The Horse and His Boy, so does Job when God speaks to him.
On one last note, I found it very interesting that when God commanded Job’s friends to repent and offer sacrifice it says that God “received” Job, and that when Job prayed his friends where forgiven, rather than when they had committed the sacrifices.