Protesting God in Jewish Interpretations of Job

Weiss, Shira

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-95373-7_2

Shira Weiss⁴

101 Accesses

Abstract

Characterized as upright and God-fearing, Job is afflicted with devastating losses and suffering, even though no sins are attributed to him to warrant his hardships. Job protests his unfair treatment and charges God with wrongdoing as he hopes for vindication through accusation. But, how are such challenges to divine justice understood from a Jewish theological perspective? Are Job’s contentions against his Creator justified or do they constitute brazen iniquities? This analysis explores the pro-protest and anti-protest traditions within rabbinic literature in an effort to explicate the ambiguous biblical text and examine Judaism’s attitude towards diverse responses to the suffering of the righteous.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 39.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 54.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
Job 1:1.
2.
Job 2:10.
3.
Such terms include limhot (to protest), lekro tagar (to reproach), lehashiv (to challenge), leharher (to criticize), etc.; See Dov Weiss, Pious Irreverence (PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 3.
4.
Gen. 18:25.
5.
Ex. 5:22–23.
6.
Jeremiah 12:1.
7.
Jeremiah 15:18.
8.
Habakkuk 1:2–4,13.
9.
Job 7:11.
10.
Job 9:17.
11.
Job 10:2–8.
12.
Lance Hawley, “The Rhetoric of Condemnation in the Book of Job,” JBL 139, no. 3 (2020): 459–478.
13.
Job 16:11–12 … 19:6–7.
14.
Job 30:20–21.
15.
Job 9:22–24.
16.
Job 21:7–9.
17.
M. Sota 5.5; Deut. Rabbah II, 4; BT Sotah 31a; Nahum Glatzer, Dimensions of Job (NY: Schocken Books, 1969), 17.
18.
Ephraim Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1975), 409.
19.
BT Sota 31a.
20.
BT Baba Batra 15b. Following the Binding of Isaac, God praises Abraham in Genesis “For now I know that you are one who fears God.” (Gen. 22:12), whereas Job is praised as “A perfect and upright man, who fears God and eschews evil.” However, the Scriptural verse cited by the Talmud to support this assertion is from the first chapter of the Book of Job prior to his trial of afflictions. R. Johanan also states, “There was no more righteous Gentile than Job, yet he came only with reproaches.” (Deut. Rabbah II:4).
21.
Job 25:4–6.
22.
Job 5:17.
23.
Job 11:6–8.
24.
Kenneth Seeskin, “Job and the Problem of Evil,” Philosophy and Literature 11, no.2 (1987): 232.
25.
Job 42:7.
26.
Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion in Israel, trans. by M. Greenberg (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1961), 335.
27.
Seeskin, “Job and the Problem of Evil,” 236.
28.
Job 23:3.
29.
David Kraemer, Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature (NY: Oxford University Press, 1995), 33.
30.
Weiss, Pious Irreverence, 109.
31.
Carl Schultz, “The Cohesive Issue of Mispat in Job.” In Go to the Land I Will Show You: Studies in Honor of Dwight W. Young. Edited by Joseph Coleson and Victor Matthews (Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 165.
32.
Job 13:18.
33.
Meira Kensky, Trying Man, Trying God: The Divine Courtroom in Early Jewish and Christian Literature (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 39.
34.
Job 9:32.
35.
Kensky, Trying Man, Trying God: The Divine Courtroom in Early Jewish and Christian Literature, 46.
36.
Job 9:34–35.
37.
Deut. 16:19–20. Carol Newsom, “The Invention of the Divine Courtroom in the Book of Job,” in The Divine Courtroom in Comparative Perspective, edited by A. Mermelstein, S. Holtz. (Boston: Brill, 2014).
38.
Job 13:23.
39.
Job 10:2.
40.
Job 16:18.
41.
Anson Laytner, Arguing with God: A Jewish Tradition (Northvale, NJ: J. Aronson, 1990) Job acts as plaintiff and God as defendant when he demands an accounting for his suffering: Job 9:14–19,32–35; 13:3,15–28; 24:1; 31:35–37.
God also serves as judge who Job begs for justice: Job 9:32–35; 10:2; 13:13–19; 16:18–22; 19:23–29; 27:1–6; 31:35–37. In a final effort, Job takes an oath in which he challenges God to intervene in his case and give him the opportunity to confront his Accuser and Judge: Job 35–37.
42.
Kensky, Trying Man, Trying God, 41. Scholarship on juridical allusions in the Book of Job include, SH Scholnick, ‘Lawsuit Drama in the Book of Job (PhD dissertation, Brandeis, 1975); M. Dick, “The Legal Metaphor in Job 31,” CBQ 41 (1979),37–50; JB Frye, “Legal Language and the Book of Job” (PhD dissertation, University of London, 1973); SH Scholnick, “Poetry in the Courtroom: Job 38–41,” in Elaine Follis ed. Directions in Biblical Hebrew Poetry (JSOT Supp 40; Sheffield: University of Sheffield, 1987), 185–204; SH Scholnick, “The Meaning of Mispat in the Book of Job,” JBL 101 (1982), 521–529; FR Magdalene, On the Scales of Righteousness: Neo-Babylonian Trial Law and the Book of Job (Brown Judaic Studies 348; Providence, RI: Brown University, 2007).
43.
Job 9:33.
44.
Job 31:6.
45.
Job 9:12.
46.
Job 19:7.
47.
Job 13:8.
48.
Job 33:13.
49.
Job 38:3; 40:2,7–8. Robert Alter, “The Voice from the Whirlwind,” Commentary 77 (1984):33–41. God uses arguments about creation to enable Job to appreciate the limitations of human comprehension regarding God’s creation and governance of the world. God reprimands Job, “Who is this who darkens counsel speaking without knowledge? … Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Speak if you have understanding.” (Job 38:2,4) God’s ambiguous revelation to him and Job’s vague acquiescence by the end of the Book, are therefore, left open to interpretation, as is whether or not Job’s suffering was justified.
50.
Alter, “The Voice from the Whirlwind,” 33–41.
51.
Kraemer, Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature (NY: Oxford University Press, 1995), 150–71; Weiss, Pious Irreverence, 50; Joseph Heinemann, Prayer in the Talmud: Forms and Patterns, Studia Judaica (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1977), 49; see also David Stern, Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 130–45; Dov Weiss, “Confrontations with God in Late Rabbinic Literature” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2011).
52.
Laytner , Arguing with God: A Jewish Tradition. While texts in the pro-protest tradition sanction challenging the divine, they do not all praise such critiques of God, but offer a range of attitudes from ambivalence to the celebration of the effort to ameliorate injustice.
53.
Job 23:13.
54.
Ibid.
55.
Mekhilta de- Rabbi Ishmael Veyehi 6; Weiss, Pious Irreverence, 24.
56.
Weiss, Pious Irreverence, 59.
57.
Midrash Tanhuma Shemot 18.
58.
Job 23:13.
59.
Midrash Tanhuma Shemot 18.
60.
The rabbis of the Tannaitic period, 2nd and third century CE, opposed protests against the divine.
61.
Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, 178–80; Weiss, Pious Irreverence, 208 n. 13.
62.
Jeffrey Rubinstein, Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition and Culture (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1999), 275.
63.
Weiss, Pious Irreverence, 16. See also chapter 6, p.161–82 for several midrashic examples of divine concession.
64.
Ibid., 50; Judah Goldin, Studies in Midrash and Related Literature, ed. Barry Eichler and Jeffrey Tigay (Phila: JPS, 1988), 181.
65.
Midrash Tannaim on Deut. 18:13.
66.
For instance, the Talmud (BT Sota 11a) suggests that Job was one of Pharaoh’s counselors. When Balaam convinced Pharaoh to order all Israelite boys to be thrown into the river, Job remained silent and did not intervene, for which he was deserving of his afflictions as punishment.
67.
Judith Baskin, Pharaoh’s Counsellors: Job, Jethro and Balaam in Rabbinic and Patristic Tradition (Brown Judaic Studies, 1983), 22.
68.
Job 2:10.
69.
Job 9:24.
70.
The Talmud cites a parallel dispute between tanna’im taught in a baraita: “The earth is given into the hand of the wicked.” R. Eliezer says: Job sought to turn the bowl upside down; R. Joshua said to him: Job was referring here only to the Satan.
71.
Job 10:7.
72.
Job 6:2.
73.
Job 9:33.
74.
BT Baba Batra 16a. Rava ultimately concludes “From here [we learn] that an individual is not held liable for [what he says in] distress,” which may be interpreted as mitigating Rava’s earlier accusation that though Job did not sin with his lips, he sinned in his heart.
75.
Gen. Rabbah 28:4 to Gen. 6:7.
76.
In M. Sota 5.5, R. Johanan b. Zakkai claims Job served God out of fear, as opposed to Abraham; BT Sota 27a; BT Sanhedrin 106a.
77.
Job 10:2; Midrash Tehillim 26:2.
78.
Gen. 18:25.
79.
Job 9:22.
80.
Confirming that God is not so unjust as to kill the righteous with the wicked.
81.
Gen. Rabbah 49:9; Weiss, Pious Irreverence, 89–90.
82.
Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, 412–13. Challenging God can be beneficial or detrimental, depending on how and in what contexts it is expressed, it may be permitted and praised or condemned and punished.
83.
Pesiqta Rabbahti 47:1; Weiss, Pious Irreverence, 52.
84.
Sifrei Deuteronomy 307 on Deut. 32:4.
85.
Mishnah ‘Eduyot 2:10.
86.
BT Baba Batra 15b.
87.
Job 23:3.
88.
Job 19:4.
89.
Job 4:20.
90.
Ex. Rabbah II 30:11.
91.
Weiss, Pious Irreverence, 54–5.
92.
The judicial meaning of the term mispat can be found in: Isa. 28:6, Deut. 17:8, Num. 27:5, 35:12, II Sam. 15:4. The ruling meaning of mispat is exemplified in I Sam. 8 in response to Israel’s request for a king. God commands Samuel to convey the requirements and provisions of the ruler. “Tell them the jurisdiction of the king (mispat hammelek) who will be ruler over them,” (I Sam 8:9) followed by the parameters of the royal authority.
93.
Job 40:8.
94.
Job 34:23.
95.
Job 36:24–37:24.
96.
Job 37:23.
97.
Scholnick, “The Meaning of Mispat in the Book of Job,” 521–22.
98.
Job 42:3,6.
99.
Scholnick, “The Meaning of Mispat in the Book of Job,” 529.
100.
Job 42:3–6.
101.
Job 38:2,4.
102.
Job 27:3–6.
103.
Job 42:5–6.
104.
Oliver Leaman, Evil and Suffering in Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 25.
105.
I want to thank Dov Weiss for his insightful feedback on this chapter.

References

Alter, Robert. “The Voice from the Whirlwind,” Commentary 77 (1984):33–41.
Google Scholar
Baskin, Judith. Pharaoh’s Counsellors: Job, Jethro and Balaam in Rabbinic and Patristic Tradition. Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 1983.
Google Scholar
Hawley, Lance. “The Rhetoric of Condemnation in the Book of Job,” JBL 139, no. 3 (2020): 459–478.
Google Scholar
Kaufmann, Yehezkel. The Religion in Israel. Trans. by M. Greenberg. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1961.
Google Scholar
Kensky, Meira. Trying Man, Trying God: The Divine Courtroom in Early Jewish and Christian Literature. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010.
Google Scholar
Kraemer, David. Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature. NY: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Google Scholar
Laytner, Anson. Arguing with God: A Jewish Tradition. Northvale: J. Aronson, 1990.
Google Scholar
Leaman, Oliver. Evil and Suffering in Jewish Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Book Google Scholar
Newsom, Carol. “The Invention of the Divine Courtroom in the Book of Job,” in The Divine Courtroom in Comparative Perspective, edited by A. Mermelstein, S. Holtz. Boston: Brill, 2014.
Google Scholar
Rubinstein, Jeffrey. Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition and Culture. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Google Scholar
Scholnick, Sylvia Huberman. “The Meaning of Mispat in the Book of Job,” JBL 101 (1982), 521–529
Google Scholar
Schultz, Carl. "The Cohesive Issue of Mispat in Job." In Go to the Land I Will Show You: Studies in Honor of Dwight W. Young, edited by Joseph Coleson and Victor Matthews, 159–175. Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1996.
Google Scholar
Seeskin, Kenneth. “Job and the Problem of Evil,” Philosophy and Literature 11, no.2 (1987): 226–241.
Google Scholar
Urbach, Ephraim. The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1975
Google Scholar
Weiss, Dov. Pious Irreverence. PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.
Book Google Scholar
———. “The Sin of Protesting God in Rabbinic and Patristic Literature,” AJS Review 39, no. 2 (2015):367–92.
Google Scholar

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Yeshiva University, New York, NY, USA
Shira Weiss

Authors

Shira Weiss
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shira Weiss .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Weiss, S. (2022). Protesting God in Jewish Interpretations of Job. In: The Protests of Job. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95373-7_2

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95373-7_2
Published: 07 May 2022
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-95372-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-95373-7
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics