Commentary on Job: From The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary

By Gary A. Long

Comprehensive, accessible, and fully illustrated--this commentary on Job is a must-have resource.

You want a deeper understanding of the Scriptures, but the notes in your study Bible don't give you enough depth or insight. This commentary was created with you in mind.

Each volume of The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary is a nontechnical, section-by-section commentary on one book or section of the Bible that provides reliable and readable interpretations of the Scriptures from leading evangelical scholars. This information-packed commentary will help you gain a deeper understanding of the Bible in your own personal study or in preparation for teaching. It tackles problematic questions, calls attention to the spiritual and personal aspects of the biblical message, and brings out important points of biblical theology, making it invaluable to anyone seeking to get the most out of their Bible study.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781493424528

Gary A. Long

Gary A. Long (PhD, University of Chicago) is professor of biblical and theological studies at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is also the author of Grammatical Concepts 101 for Biblical Greek.

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© 2012 by Baker Publishing Group

Published by Baker Books

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Ebook short created 2019

Previously published in The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary edited by Gary M. Burge and Andrew E. Hill in 2012

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ISBN 978-1-4934-2452-8

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Abbreviations

Introduction

Commentary

1. Prologue and Epilogue (1:1–2:13; 42:7–17)

A. Prologue (1:1–2:13)

B. Epilogue (42:7–17)

2. Job’s Opening Soliloquy (3:1–26)

3. Three Cycles of Dialogue (4:1–14:22; 15:1–21:34; 22:1–27:23)

A. Eliphaz’s Words (4–5; 15; 22)

B. Bildad’s Words (8; 18; 25–26)

C. Zophar’s Words (11; 20; 27:13–23?)

D. Job’s Words (6–7; 9–10; 12–14; 16–17; 19; 21; 23–24; 27:1–12)

4. Wisdom: Where Is It? (28:1–28)

5. Job’s Closing Soliloquy (29:1–31:40)

6. Elihu’s Words (32:1–37:24)

7. God’s Speeches (38:1–41:34) with Job’s Responses (40:3–5; 42:1–6)

8. A Final Word

Time Lines

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Abbreviations

Job

Gary A. Long

Introduction

Book Outline

On the surface, the book of Job is a simple story: Job, a pious man, is struck down in the prime of life. He and his friends strive to understand the reasons for his calamities. God appears and Job is restored.

Dig deeper, though, and one quickly understands why this book commands the attention it does among scholars, clerics, and interested readers. Crosscurrents, complexities, ambiguities, and contradictions play out. It soothes and it frustrates. Sitting squarely within the biblical corpus of wisdom literature, the book is, in part, a counterpoint to the theology of piety and sin developed in Proverbs, represented in the words of Job’s friends. We encounter biblical point/counterpoint in substantive fashion.

We enter now into the world of Job, the literary work and the character. Here in the introduction, the path ahead is first to recognize that literature like Job had company. We will then consider the book’s interpretive hurdles, and, in light of some of those hurdles, consider how one may make sense of the final form we encounter in the Bible.

Mesopotamian Parallels

We should not be surprised to encounter Job-like literature outside of Job. Suffering is universal, and contemplating unexpected suffering in the face of believing that one has faithfully lived out the will of a deity is clearly Mesopotamian. Though Job shares similarities with some Mesopotamian literature, comparisons to the entirety of Job do not stand.

An important characteristic blossoms when one looks at the dialogues in Job and the Mesopotamian parallels. Sophistication and high literary art are seemingly found within an author’s ability to revisit and to recraft a point into many elaborations, much like musical variations on a theme. Yes, there is development, to be sure, but repetition lies at the core.

Sumerian. "Man and His God, or Sumerian Job" (COS 1.179:573–75), is the earliest Mesopotamian example to explore social and physical suffering among the pious. The demons Namtar and Asag play a role in the suffering of a virile young man. Only after the man affirms that never has a sinless child been born to its mother (line 104), and at the city gate publicly declares his sins (line 115), does he receive restitution. Accepting this sufferer’s prayer, the god fully restores him to joy and protects him with guardian spirits. Sumerian Job, in the end, then, embraces a traditional or orthodox understanding of retributive theology (that the good prosper and the wicked are punished). This tale lacks dialogue, so robustly used within biblical Job, telling its story through monologue and the narrator’s voice. Unlike biblical Job, this tale offers no challenge to traditional retributive theology.