Faith in Suffering Theme Analysis

When Job hears the news that he’s lost his children and all his possessions, he immediately responds by tearing his robe and shaving his head (traditional signs of mourning in the ancient Near East). He then falls to the ground and worships God, saying, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” Even after Job himself is afflicted with terrible sores, he continues to “maintain his integrity” by refusing to curse God and believing that people must accept both good and bad things from God’s hand. Ultimately, though, Job can’t reconcile the apparent contradiction between what he believes about God (that God is just) and the way God appears to be treating him (unjustly). Because of this inconsistency, Job wants to “argue his case” to God to prove his innocence. Job’s determination to confront God, though later criticized as arrogant, does show that Job believes God is ultimately a just judge. And at the end of the book, God does restore Job’s fortunes, granting him greater blessings than he had before. The Book of Job takes it for granted that innocent people will suffer; the bigger question, it suggests, is how they respond to that suffering. By using the character of Job as a model of persistent faith, the book suggests that sufferers exercise faith in God by continuing to trust him even when they have no guarantee of answers, respite, or reward.

Satan believes that if God allows bad things to happen to Job, Job will curse God. While God finds Job to be his “blameless” “servant,” Satan contends that Job only worships God because God has protected him and granted him good things. If God allows Satan to harm Job, Satan argues, Job will surely turn from God and even curse him. In other words, Satan charges that Job’s faith is superficial and that as soon as that faith is really challenged, it will quickly crumble. However, Job’s immediate reaction to his loss is to praise God even while he mourns. Fallen on the ground with his robe torn and his head shaven, Job declares, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD,” a statement affirming that no matter what God has permitted to happen to Job, Job still trusts him and worships him. Even after God allows Satan to afflict Job himself with a terrible disease, Job refuses his wife’s recommendation that he just “curse God, and die,” because people must receive both good and bad things from God. Job’s reactions suggest that in tragedy, a faithful person should trust God and his ways, even if they’re hard to understand.

Even when Job begins to complain about his suffering and to argue with God, the fact that he does argue (and doesn’t simply curse God) suggests that God is ultimately just. Job insists on defending himself before God even if “he will kill me [and] I will have no hope,” trusting that somehow, God will uphold Job’s innocence in the end. Job’s words suggest that stating his case is worth risking God’s deadly wrath—he clearly has faith that, in some mysterious way, God will hear and vindicate Job even beyond death. In the same speech in which he claims that God regards him as an enemy, Job also asserts that his “Redeemer lives” and that he will someday see this divine vindicator on his side. Without denying the severity of his pain, Job continues to believe that God, though he doesn’t appear to be on Job’s side right now, will someday redeem Job from his suffering. Job trusts that his current argument with God isn’t the end of the story. Job insists that it’s a matter of his “integrity” to maintain his innocence, and that, as long as God continues to grant him life, he won’t say anything false. His refusal to give up suggests that, on some level, he still trusts God to make things right in the end.

At the end of the book, God does vindicate Job, suggesting that Job is a model of faith in the midst of suffering. At the end of the book, God calls Job his “servant” just as he did at the beginning, and he tells Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar that he’ll forgive their foolish speech if Job prays for them—effectively confirming that Job was right in maintaining his innocence all along and that the other men should look up to Job as a model of faithfulness, not the other way around. After all of Job’s suffering, God also grants Job twice the riches he had before, gives him more children, and prolongs his life, rewarding Job’s integrity. Though the book makes it clear that material prosperity doesn’t tell the full story about a person either way, it also reaffirms that God is good to people who trust in him. Ultimately, Job doesn’t receive clear-cut answers from God, he suffers greatly in the meantime, and he isn’t given any promise of reward until the end. Job is upheld as a model of faith in suffering because, even when he wrestles with God and struggles to trust him, he doesn’t give up or turn away from God.