By Ken Pierce
Few would rank the book of Job as one of the Bible’s top ten books, yet it is a book that has much to say about real life challenges that pepper the believer’s experience today. Circumstances and cultures change, but the trials, tragedies, and traumas afflicting believers remain very much the same.
Preserved in some of the most difficult yet beautiful Hebrew poetry in existence, Job’s story navigates a complex range of human thought, emotion, and behavior: love, faithfulness, humility, integrity, and perseverance on the one hand; defective theology, arrogance, and judgmentalism on the other. Its forty-two chapters dive deeply into difficult and enduring questions of evil and suffering, contributing to the scholar’s understanding of theology proper (i.e., attributes and works of God), angelology, anthropology, and hamartiology (the doctrine of sin), as well as the doctrines of eternal security, perseverance, faithfulness, and rewards.
Liberal commentators have theorized synthetic authorship from multiple sources, compiled and redacted at a late point in history (e.g., the Persian or early Hellenistic eras of the fifth and third centuries BC). But several lines of evidence point to a much earlier date for this masterpiece of ancient Hebrew. Indeed, the text of Job likely preserves the earliest extant record of mankind’s dealings with the Most High, significantly predating myths and legends preserved from other cultures. Indeed, the time frame in which Job’s story unfolded probably falls within the early patriarchal era (Genesis 11:27–50:26; that is, around 1950–1500 BC). That range makes Job a possible contemporary of Abraham, and he may have lived even earlier.
One line of evidence favoring an early date for Job is the absence of any reference to the Torah, the Exodus, the tabernacle/temple, etc. Though an argument from silence, the lack of reference to those landmarks by five men (Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu) familiar with the one true God opens the door to composition during an earlier period.
Another data-point indicating early authorship is the fact that eight OT books (Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Micah, Zephaniah) quote from Job. Job was therefore completed and proliferated early enough for the authors of later works to be aware of its contents and to be led by the Spirit to include portions in their writings.
Today, parched desert constitutes much of the geography in which Job’s story took place. But at the time of his experience, the land of Uz was comparatively lush, sufficiently well-watered to yield abundant pastoral and agricultural wealth. That description aligns neatly with Lot’s assay of the region east of the Jordan during the patriarchal period (Gen 13:10).
The book’s multiple references to wisdom that stems from the antediluvian era and God’s judgment via the Flood (Gen 7-8) likewise nest easily within a period when cultural memories were still shaped by the Flood. For example, to persuade Job to repent of a supposed sin, Bildad appealed to wisdom preserved from “the former age, and [to] consider the things discovered by their fathers” (Job 8:8-10). He perhaps reckoned that reflecting on the wisdom of the few who survived the Flood might tip the scales and bring Job to his senses. Eliphaz went further, accusing Job of being like those who “had corrupted their way on the earth” (Gen 6:12), living by “the old way which wicked men have trod…whose foundations were swept away by a flood” (Job 22:15-17). Such references make sense coming from those who lived in times not so distant from Noah’s disembarkation from the ark.
Lexically, Job contains more unique and obscure Hebrew and Aramaic terms than any other book of the Bible. No fewer than sixty words in Job are found nowhere else in Scripture. In addition to its many Aramaic words, Job also preserves several Aramaisms–that is, Hebrew word roots attached to Aramaic endings, and vice versa. Such content fits naturally within an earlier period in which men like Abram and Lot spoke in dialects that were mutually intelligible across the Ancient Near East, trading and blending vocabulary as they went. By the time Septuagint scholars gathered in Alexandria, Egypt, to translate the Tanakh into Greek (~ third and second centuries BC), they could only guess at the meaning of many archaic terms in Job. As early as the Ptolemaic era (305-30 BC), much of the vocabulary Job and his companions spoke had long since fallen out of common usage (somewhat like reading Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales in Middle English today). While some have suggested that later author(s) purposefully inserted pseudo-archaic terms to lend vintage panache to the text, Occam’s razor favors early authorship as the simplest and most likely explanation.
Another feature befitting an early setting is Job’s performance of sacrificial rites on behalf of his family (1:5). Priestly service by heads of households became anachronistic in later generations (cf. Exod 28). Additionally, Job 42:16-17 reveals that he lived 140 years after God restored him to blessing. Though his final age is not recorded, the fact that he raised ten adult children (Job 1:4, 13, 18-19) before his testing began suggests a lifespan fitting the patriarchal period (cf. Gen 9:29; 25:7-8; 35:28; 47:28).
Job’s early authorship represents more than a point of academic interest. For the church-age believer, the timeworn character of Job’s content affirms the unchanging nature of human beings and their need for God’s saving grace. People have faced the same hardships, heartbreaks, and disappointments since Adam and Eve walked out of Eden–a reality contrary to postmodern culture’s portrayal of ancients as backward dimwits sharing little in common with moderns. Job’s ancient text preserves an authentic record of thoughts, words, and deeds that demonstrate unaltered human tendencies to self-righteousness, judgmentalism, and transactional religious thinking–important truths underscoring humankind’s undiminished need for God’s redemptive mercy.
Though a Gentile born many generations before Israel became a nation, Job knew Yahweh by name (Job 1:21; 12:9; 28:28). More importantly, the text reveals that the LORD knew Job by name and described him as “a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil” (1:8; 2:3). Job’s experience demonstrates God’s unchanging purpose, from earliest times, of making the living hope for a future resurrection (Job 19:24-27) available to all of Adam’s progeny (Ps 2:7-8; Isa 49:5-6). It also shows God’s limitless ability to allow evil to have its way within boundaries, yet orchestrate outcomes that glorify His name and ultimately bless His servants (Gen 50:20). Job’s righteous conduct at a time before the Torah affirms Paul’s observation that, while God’s image in mankind has been horribly marred, the instinctive sense of right and wrong remains written on the hearts of all (Rom 2:14-15).
Often overlooked after the second chapter of Job is the relentless, tormenting agency of the unseen adversary (1:9-12; 2:4-7). That point may land close to home for all who are troubled by the rapid spread of evil across the face of the earth today. Sadly, the men in Job’s periphery–men who knew many truths about God–proved eager to aid and abet his torment. Godly men who should have shown grace instead acted as willing agents of the evil one. Then as now, Satan delights in attacking and tormenting God’s people (Eph 6:10-13)–particularly when he can invoke the help of other people in his sinister craft.
Times change. Language changes. Culture changes. But Job’s experience shows that people today are the same as they have always been. The very good news is that a holy God has never stopped dealing with mankind in grace, in power, and in glory. He is ever-present, sovereignly affecting the seen and unseen realms in ways that maximize His glory while blessing His people. When Yahweh chooses to use His servants––through their trials and testing–as instruments by which to both glorify His name and instruct elect angels, the ancient story of Job reminds us that He also unfailingly blesses and rewards those servants in disproportionate measure. Truly, Job’s faith was well-placed when he said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15a). And without a doubt, he will one day testify before men and angels that the sufferings he endured in this life were not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in him, a believer who persevered (Rom 8:18; cf. 2 Tim 2:12).
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Ken Pierce is a retired Navy intelligence officer. Ken studied Biblical Hebrew and Archaeology at the Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies. He is writing several commentaries for the forthcoming GES OT commentary. He and his wife Ana Maria recently celebrated thirty-eight years of marriage.