Behind | Ancient Near Eastern Theodicies, Part 3

While the Sumerian and Akkadian accounts place responsibility and blame on the sufferer (for either sin or impurity), Job is innocent. God doesn’t convict him or establish his guilt. God points him to a greater reality and contextualizes his suffering in a wild universe that will always be unfathomable to his human mind. Job is strident in his innocence to the end, but he doesn’t get the answer he wants. He will “repent” not from sin but rather from the audacity of challenging the God of the universe. 

Suffering is a riddle in Job as it is at the outset of the other ancient Near Eastern theodicies, but in Job the riddle is only partially solved. The Bible doesn’t offer a tidy answer, but rather a glimpse into heaven (where Satan has access) and a vision of a God that is immeasurably greater than the struggle itself. This God will later suffer in innocence and endure an abyss that recalls Job’s own agony.  

Adapted from: John H. Walton and Tremper Longman III, How to Read Job, 2015, p. 27.