by David Plotz
chapters 10–11
Solomon starts tossing off snappy one-liners, the proverbs that give the book its name. “A wise child makes a glad father, but a foolish child is a mother’s grief.” (I’m not really sure what that one means, but it sounds good.) A few of my favorites in these chapters: “Love covers all offenses.” “Lying lips conceal hatred.” “Like vinegar to the teeth, and smoke to the eyes, so are the lazy to their employers.” That last one was probably the corporate slogan of the Judean version of FedEx.
That proverb about vinegar in the teeth is an excellent reminder that the Bible, among its other achievements, is also a pretty good guidebook for ethical behavior in business. Throughout the book, but especially in Leviticus and here in Proverbs, there are instructions on how to do business honestly. For example, the first proverb in Chapter 11 is: “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but an accurate weight is his delight.” Think how important true weights and measures are to any society. We have electronic scales and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The Israelites didn’t, so God makes honest scales His business.
Here’s a doozy of a line: “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without good sense.”
chapter 17
God is not a big fan of schadenfreude: “Those who are glad at calamity will not go unpunished.”
Great proverb: “Better to meet a she-bear robbed of its cubs than to confront a fool immersed in folly.”
chapter 20
Proverbs is not keen on alcohol. Here it says, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler.” And Proverbs 23 teetotals more emphatically, vividly describing the symptoms of both a hangover (“Who has redness of eyes?”) and drunkenness (“Your mind utter[s] perverse things. You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea.”) Proverbs 23 rails particularly at “those who keep trying mixed wines.” As any bartender will tell you, only a fool mixes his drinks.
But Proverbs does believe there is one group of people who should drink. After recommending that kings and princes avoid wine because they need their wits about them, the book urges us to ply the poor and miserable with liquor because it will help them “put their troubles out of their mind.” In other words, when a panhandler begs for a buck, you should hope that he uses it to buy rotgut.
chapter 23
The Bible enthusiastically endorses corporal punishment: “Do not withhold discipline from your children; if you beat them with a rod, they will not die. If you beat them with the rod, you will save their lives from Sheol.” That’s pretty unequivocal.
chapter 24
A lot of Proverbs sounds like something my Irish grandmother would say, if I had an Irish grandmother. “One who gives an honest answer gives a kiss on the lips.”
chapter 25
May I pause to pay tribute to the sheer common sense of Proverbs? It speaks up for modesty, humility, generosity, hard work, sympathy, and all the other virtues of moderation. Two gems in this chapter: “If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, or else, having too much, you will vomit it.” “Visit your neighbor sparingly, lest he have his surfeit of you and loathe you.”
chapter 31
Proverbs is fascinating on the subject of marriage, alternating wild enthusiasm and Married with Children fury. Proverbs 21, for example, has this negative comment: “It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a contentious wife. . . . It is better to live in a desert land than with a contentious and fretful wife.” But Proverbs finishes with one of the most wonderful tributes to a wife ever written. The “capable wife”—“she is far more precious than jewels.” The capable wife makes Oprah look like a bum: She gets up in the middle of the night to start her chores. She plants her own vineyard. She buys real estate. She operates a successful textile manufacturing business. She gives generously to the poor. And she’s delightful company: “She looks to the future cheerfully. Her mouth is full of wisdom, her tongue with kindly teaching.” She’s not beautiful, but so what? “Beauty is illusory”! She loves God; she works hard; she does good. We should all want to marry her—or be her.
NINETEEN
The Book of Job
God’s Bad Bet
In which Satan wagers God that he can make Job curse the Lord; Satan kills Job’s family, bankrupts him, and afflicts him with horrible skin diseases; Job complains incessantly and berates God for punishing him; Job’s three friends tell him he deserves his suffering; Job insists he doesn’t; God shows up and belittles Job’s complaints, but then restores his fortune and family.
chapter 1
t is one of the embarrassments of my life that I’ve never read the book of Job. (Some other embarrassments, for those who are curious: repeatedly referring to Christian Scientists as “Scientologists” in an article for my college newspaper; a short-lived ponytail.) Job is a fundamental text of western civilization, the Bible book that even people who don’t read the Bible have read. Yet I’ve managed to avoid it.
While not reading Job, I apparently developed a gross misconception about what was in it. Like everyone with a pulse, I knew the basic outlines: God bets Satan—a gentlegod’s bet, no cash at stake—that His most upright servant, Job, will remain faithful even in the face of catastrophe. God and Satan afflict Job, and he endures patiently.
But I seem to have wildly misunderstood the story in two ways. First, I assumed that the book was the story of Job’s trials, an endless series of unfortunate events, punctuated by satanic (and divine) laughter. In fact, God and Satan wipe out Job by the middle of Chapter 2. The next forty chapters are just argument. Second, because I believe clichés, I thought that Job would be patient (“patient as Job”). In fact, it turns out he’s the opposite of patient. He’s frustrated, enraged, petulant, and agitated about his situation. He can’t believe how badly he has been screwed, and he’s desperate to fix it, right now.
Who is Job? And when did he live? The book does not give us many clues. Judging from the language and milieu, the book seems to take place before the time of the patriarchs, sometime between the Flood and Abraham. It’s pretty clear that Job is not an Israelite, since the book doesn’t mention the patriarchs, God’s covenant, or Israel. Other evidence that it’s pre-Abrahamic: the God of Job resembles the God of early Genesis, who intervened busily in earthly affairs, and concerned Himself with all humans, not merely His chosen Israelites.
Job lives in the land of Uz, which is not to be confused with the Land of Oz (though, as we shall see, Uz, like Oz, is vulnerable to sudden tornadoes that cause deadly building collapses). Job has “feared God and shunned evil,” and his faithful goodness has made him the richest man in the east, the Warren Buffett of Uz, with 7,000 sheep and 3,000 camels. He also has seven sons and three daughters. (That numerical pattern of sevens and threes is odd—why are sheep like sons and camels like daughters?)
Meanwhile, over at God’s house, some angels drop by for a social visit. Accompanying them is the Adversary, “Ha-Satan” in Hebrew, as we learned in Zechariah. Here is what this Satan is not: a fallen angel, wicked, omnipotent, demonic, living in hell, warring with God for dominion over the Earth, carry ing a pitchfork, or dressed like an evil Santa. Here is what he is: argumentative, troublemaking. This is another example of the popu lar culture and Christianity oversimplifying and flattening a biblical character. Our modern Satan is a cartoonish incarnation of pure evil. The Bible’s Satan is fascinating because he’s ambiguous. He is actually the kind of guy any smart God would want around, because he questions authority. He asks the tricky, contentious questions that make God more thoughtful about His own work. Satan makes God uncomfortable, but only so God will do His job better.
The Lord asks Satan what he has been doing. Satan says he’s been wandering around the world. The Lord asks if he ever got a chance to meet the star earthling Job. God starts bragging about how good Job is. Satan interrupts the love fest, jeering that Job loves the Lord only because God has given him so much weal
th. If God takes away all this good fortune, Satan says, Job will curse Him. God accepts the wager. He tells Satan to do his worst but to not harm Job physically. The next seven verses are breathtaking. In short order, four messengers arrive at Job’s house. The first announces that all Job’s oxen and donkeys have been stolen; the next that a fire from heaven has incinerated his 7,000 sheep; the next that the Chaldeans have taken his 3,000 camels; and the last that a “mighty wind” has blown down his son’s tent, killing all ten of his children. But Job does not curse God: He tears his clothes, cuts off his hair, and cries one of the most famous verses in the Bible: “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
chapter 2
Round one clearly goes to God. Job isn’t cursing. But Satan isn’t satisfi ed. He gibes God a second time. The only reason Job isn’t complaining is that he still has health and life. “Lay a hand on his bones and his flesh, and he will surely blaspheme.” God can’t say no to a challenge. He says that Satan can do anything short of killing Job. Satan afflicts Job with wicked sores all over his body. Completely incapacitated, Job sits and scratches himself with a broken shard of pottery. His wife tells him he should curse God, but Job is philosophical: “Should we accept only good from God and not accept evil?”
We’re only halfway through Job 2, and almost all the action of this book has taken place: the divine bet, the punishments of Job, and his perseverance. What’s left to happen? Job’s three friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar hear about his tragedies and show up at his house to console him.
chapter 3
At this point, Job turns from prose to poetry. Both translations I am reading pause to observe, almost apologetically, that the poetic language of Job is very difficult and opaque. This must explain why the two translations differ immensely from each other, and from other translations.
Job has not cursed God—in that sense, God is winning his wager with Satan—but Job certainly isn’t taking his misery lying down. His first words to his three friends are, “Perish the day on which I was born.” He asks why God let him live, only to make him suffer, and why God doesn’t let him die now.
chapters 4–5
Job’s three friends—who turn out to be more “frenemies” than friends—immediately lay into him. Eliphaz rebukes Job, setting out the argument that the friends will repeat for the next thirty-odd chapters. No innocent man was ever punished by God. If you’re suffering, it is surely because you have done wrong. You, Job, are evil, as we are all evil: “For man is born to do mischief, just as sparks fl y upward.”
Eliphaz also suggests that Job should be grateful for God’s punishment. The Lord is wounding him so as to heal him later. Eventually, God will give him wealth, protect him from violence, and, apparently, give him a lifetime supply of Viagra. (“When you visit your wife, you will never fail.”)
chapters 6–8
Job is unimpressed by Eliphaz’s Panglossian argument. He points out that his punishment is undeservedly great. He’s suffering so much that he can’t endure any longer. Job doesn’t curse God, but he certainly
waxes wroth against Him. “I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” His flesh is infested with maggots, happiness has abandoned him, and when he seeks comfort in sleep, God sends nightmares. In a wonderful passage, Job urges God to stop paying so much attention to man, since his attention is so unpleasant. Job sees God as Big Brother: “What is man, that You make much of him. . . . You inspect him every morning, examine him every minute. Will You not look away from me for awhile, let me be?” (This inverts, and mocks, a famous verse from Psalm 8: “What is man that Thou are mindful of him?”)
The second friend, Bildad, now chimes in, also blaming Job, and telling him to shut up: “Your utterances are a mighty wind.” Of course Job should suffer, Bildad says, because God would never “pervert justice.” Job’s sons probably died because they sinned. God doesn’t punish the blameless.
chapter 9
As I’ve mentioned, one repeated theme of the Bible is a lawsuit between man and God. Again and again, we are suing the Almighty or He is countersuing—usually for breach of covenant. Job 9 is the beginning of the most spectacular lawsuit of them all: Job v. God. The friends have urged Job to take his case to God. Canny lawyer that he is, Job recognizes that he faces impossible odds: “Man cannot win a suit against God,” Job moans. God can move mountains; He can “command the sun not to shine.” How can Job possibly argue with Him? How could Job possibly defeat Him? God would fix the outcome; He would cheat to win. Even though Job is innocent, Job says, “It will be I who am in the wrong.” Even if Job washes himself, “You would dip me in muck.” Again, Job doesn’t exactly curse God, but he comes mighty close, accusing Him of injustice, of punishing the blameless and mocking the innocent.
chapter 10
So far, Job has directed most of his comments to the friends, but now he whacks God directly. God knows he’s innocent yet punishes him.
Job wonders why God would bother to make him—to fashion him “like clay”—just so that he can suffer. Job thinks it must be a game for God, an ego trip.
These complaints of Job’s don’t count as curses for the purposes of the bet between God and Satan. Why? Even though Job is angry at God, he still accepts God’s authority. Job still appeals to God, still assumes that God can act to make it right. Truly cursing God would be abandoning Him. Job never gives up: he begs, berates, insists, and screams that God do better. But he always accepts that God is the decider.
chapter 11
The bitter exchange between Job and his obnoxious friends continues. The three friends’ relentless criticism of him seems particularly unfair when you remember that he’s in mourning, having just lost all ten of his kids in a terrible accident (and lost his fortune, too). Miss Manners would take a hammer to the head of any funeral guest who behaved as rudely as Job’s friends.
The basic pattern of the next twenty chapters is this: Jerk friend tells Job that he deserves his suffering because God always punishes the wicked; infuriated Job growls at the jerk friend, then asserts his innocence. Repeat.
chapters 12–14
Job vows to speak the whole truth to God—to say that God has wronged him. Job will speak out, he says, “come on me what may. I will . . . put my life in my hand. See, he will kill me; I have no hope; but I will defend my ways to his face. This will be my salvation.” No one else in the Bible—except Moses in a few brave moments, Abraham in the memorable face-off at Sodom, and Gideon, briefl y—has ever dared what Job dares here. Job refuses to flatter God, refuses to confess sins he didn’t commit, refuses to compromise to win God’s approval. He is placing truth above life, honesty above obedience. In doing this, Job is laying out what has become the modern idea of justice. There is a truth that’s independent of power. The truth will set you free, even if it’s painful for the king to hear it.
chapters 18–21
Bildad hits the usual theme: only the wicked and ungodly are punished. The friends’ notion of justified punishment rings particularly hollow to me this week, when two good friends—two of the best people I know—were diagnosed with cancer. I don’t know how anyone who has lived for any time on planet Earth could swallow the friends’ argument. It’s obvious that suffering and happiness are randomly distributed. Often the good suffer terribly and the wicked prosper mightily. No one but a fool would say otherwise. Any religion that hopes to succeed has to devise an explanation for that injustice. Usually, the explanation is: you’ll get yours—and the wicked will get theirs—in the next world. The friends are claiming something manifestly false: that reward and punishment occur in our own lifetimes.
Job raises exactly this objection. “Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? Their children are established in their presence. . . . Their houses are safe from fear. . . . Their bull breeds without fail. . . . They spend their days in prosp
erity.”
Job concludes that it’s all random. Some people die rich and happy, others poor and bitter, and there’s no order or justice in it.
chapters 28–31
Job sets out to prove that he was a good man. When God was still with him—“when His lamp shone over my head”—Job led a worthy life. He enjoyed his riches, to be sure—his “feet were bathed in cream,” and everyone heeded his orders—but he also did good, all the time. “I put on righteousness.” He had a handout for every beggar, a job for every widow, new clothes for every orphan.
Job contrasts those glorious days with his fallen state. Now he is mocked by worthless young men. (He describes them memorably: “They do not withhold spittle from my face.”)
At the end of Job’s laundry list of good deeds, he rests his case. It’s a brilliant summing up: He has undeniably proved that he was a good man. He’s so persuasive, in fact, that he finally shuts up the three friends. They fall silent, letting Job have the last word.
chapters 32–37
As soon as the three friends finally stop badgering Job, a whippersnapper named Elihu arrives to replace them. A know-it- all twerp, Elihu is even more obnoxious than the other three—more aggressive, smugger, and ruder to poor old Job. Elihu immediately takes issue with Job’s claim that God doesn’t answer us. Elihu says the problem is that Job isn’t listening. God answers in dreams (where He “terrifies them with his warnings”). God also answers in the form of physical illness, sending pain and discomfort to those who are crossing Him. (I don’t know about you, but I find the argument that illness is divine punishment infuriating.) A little later, Elihu offers another explanation for God’s apparent indifference to the pleas of Job and others who are suffering. It’s not that He’s not listening; it’s that their prayers are not sincere. “God does not hear an empty cry.” Elihu—who has the stamina of Fidel Castro—rants on like this for six straight chapters. As soon as he finally shuts his mouth . . .