In “The reflections on suffering from the book of Job” by Larry J. Waters, we see Job is suffering from all points of view. Reading the book of Job, we examine how Job’s suffering is view by all the characters involve and their effect on Job’s life. In the book of Job Satan and God are what started all this. Then later his wife, his three friends, and Elihu are going to have a say so on how they feel about Jobs suffering. Finally, we get to hear God and his explanation of why he let all this happen.
In the beginning, of the book of Job Satan the accuser begins by challenging God. The reader can see these since for starters God was only going to talk to the heavenly court. Satan appears twice to challenge God at the meeting without being invited. Then God just lets him know to consider Job. One reason that God at the end lets Satan do all this is, because Satan in Job 1:9 says “Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God.” However, the main reason that God allows all this to happen is to show Satan that no matter how hard he tries Job will not denied Him. In the book of Job as Larry, points out we cannot forget that if it were not for God letting Satan put Job in trial none of these things would have ever taken place. Yet, this does not mean that God did not care for Job. God knew how much Job loves him and allowed Satan to test him, so that at the end Job would come closer to him.
After Jobs suffering starts, we meet his wife. Jobs wife might not have such a big role, but her part has a lot to say in just a few words. The only time the reader hears Job’s wife all she says in Job 2:9 “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.” In her point of view, she felt that Job had not done something bad, to deserve thi...
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...and that, he could not discredit Gods justice. People have always tried to explain how God’s justice works, but at the end they cannot since is beyond their capabilities.
While Job’s friend assumed that, all his suffering was because of sin they fail to answer Jobs ultimate question “why are all this things happening to me and what have I done to deserve this.” It did not matter how much Satan tried at the end he fail to prove his point. No one, but God had the answers that Job wanted to hear. In addition God had to let Job know that nothing not even sin can change how He administers his justice. Summing up what the book of Job at the end lets us know is that ultimately we can question God based on what is happening to us. Whatever happens at the end is by God’s grace and love that Job is who he is and not even his wife, nor Satan, nor his friends can change that.
...something that he would not dare admit, for it would question the authority of himself as a judge, the court, and the church.
There is one significant difference that stands out between Job and Odysseus. That is the reason for their loss of agency and suffering. The reason in for Odysseus’ torment is obvious: he blinded Poseidon’s son. How anyone could not expect some form of vengeance, and sometimes I get the feeling Odysseus is caught unaware by Poseidon, is a mystery to me. The rationale behind Job’s reduction in agency is much less clear and is never addressed by God, who was an accessory to the whole affair by knowingly allowing it to take place. The comforters suggest possible explanations, unhidden sin or a lesson from God, but neither suggestions are confirmed or denied. The reason God accepted Satan’s wager remains a playground for speculation.
The first commentator under consideration is Martin Buber in an excerpt from his Darko shel miqra'4. Buber draws an apt parallel between the Book of Job and the proceedings in a court of law, casting God as judge and Job as prosecution. In Buber's legal parallel, Job demands what in an earthly court of law would amount to due process, or a fair trial. And yet, even as Buber confers the legitimacy of a court of law on Job's complaints, Buber suggests that Job knew his appeal was "suppressed from the start."5 Buber cites Job: "Though I am right, my mouth will condemn me!"6 By highlighting the justness of Job's claims and the non-existent chance of a divine finding in Job's favour, Buber stresses how human justice and divine justice diverge. This difference is highlighted further by discussion of how Job is made to suffer hinnam, or gratuitously, from both God and Job's perspective.7
Throughout the Bible God can be represented in a number of different ways. In some chapters of the Bible God can be found to be a compassionate, loving God, who would do anything for his people. To contradict this, in other chapters of the Bible God can be found trying to instill fear into people so that they believe in him, or do what he wants of them. In both instances it shows how different God can be seen and why believers can have doubts about how God really is.
Then, he explains, it would take much arrogance to question the motives of God. Not only that, but it simply cannot be comprehended. He rejects the trial, and simply believes since he himself is not perfect, the idea as a whole may be. He is just a part of the “big picture.” He then concludes he should only make judgements on what he is certain of.
As the book opens, Job is God's "pride and joy", so to speak. Job was free of sin, he "feared God and shunned evil"(1:1). God apparently thinks higher of Job than any other mortal. This is evidenced when he tells Satan that "There is no one on Earth like him; he is blameless and upright . . ."(1:8). When Satan questions Job's faith God allows him to test Job, as if to show off his favorite servant. This is an almost human quality in God--pride. Satan's test involves the total destruction of everything Job owns and lived for: his children his animals, and his estate. Everything was destroyed but his wife, and of course the Four Messengers of Misfortune. "In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing"(1:22).
Job was a man of the purest faith. When the world shunned God, Job's faith never declined. Job was a wealthy, handsome man with a beautiful wife and a vast amount of property. At some point in time, Satan made a bet with God that if Job situation was changed, his faith would quickly falter. On this note, God took Job's wealth, his property, his family, and his wife. When times were at their worst, God gave Job pus welts on Job's face, taking his looks. Job's faith, however, did not falter, instead it becamestronger. Job passed the test. God then healed Job, gave him more land, greater wealth , and a better wife. Job was baffled, he wondered the purpose behind his fall and rise. When he asked God this, God replied: "...Because I'm God." That was answer enough.
The whole Book is a “double” journey for Job. He shows God his faith and realizes the faith God has that Job will not stray from his path. Job knows deep down that God has not forsaken him.
Satan was thrown into existence, into the world heaven and realizes there in fact is a hierarchy, the one who rules and those who are ruled. In Satan’s case, every step he takes he feels he is getting closer to Hell. Satan is on a path he doesn’t want to be on but he has to fulfill his promises, committing to a world where it is better to reign in hell, then to serve in heaven. Satan takes initiative over Adam and Eve because they remind him of himself, and it his way in overtaking the almighty monarch, God. He describes Adam as being the strong one of the pair and Eve being quite interesting but not so strong. Satan’s mission becomes to get them to turn on the father in heaven, but they have to be willing to turn themselves. But how does he accomplish this, he does so by examining them and penetrating their minds. He listens to them talk (line 415). Satan listens to Adam (line 515). Satan is the only one who gives a damn about Adam and Eve, ironically. Which digs deeper into the one forbidden thing motif. The one forbidden thing is always taken: forbidden knowledge. Further questioning, why would God forbid them knowledge, is it because knowledge makes you like the devil? Satan makes you wonder, who are the people that will prevent you from knowing things? The people who will prevent you from knowledge are the tyrants of the world, in this case
Ask anyone above the age of sixteen years old, to describe how life is as a whole. They will describe life as a rollercoaster. A mix of highs and lows; times of joys and sadness; laughter and tears. In the first book of the Bible, Job, we discover something remarkable about suffering and the heart of God. God uses suffering to better our personal relationship with Him. Suffering is a mean God uses to build our character so we get closer to what Jesus is – perfection.
Although Satan can never reconcile his two rivaling desires, his attempts for autonomy and recognition from God result in catastrophic circumstances, both for Satan and humanity. As previously established, Satan travels to Eden in order to tempt mankind. In order to do this, Satan persuades Sin and Death to allow him to pass through Hell’s gate. The immediate result of this is that Satan also releases Sin and Death who paved a path:
...id and Job, both of these things are not applied. In this manner, the stories very often violate the same commandments meant to bring not only justice, but also morality, and other such virtues to a society and its people. Further, it is often God himself, in whose image man was created, who violates his own commandments, and due to this, can man be expected to adhere to the same commandments broken by God if he has been created in God's image? God is explicitly unjust, vengeful, and jealous, particularly in the story of Job. If God is to be an example for the ideal being, then how is it that his nature can express the same things he denounces in his guide, The Bible? All of these questions ultimately lead into one main question, which is in regards to whether or not a people who are led by an unjust God truly have the capability of developing a "just society".
In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the readers are presented the perspective side of Satan to the biblical story, Adam and Eve. Over the past centuries, there have been numerous stories about Adam and Eve, but there was never a view from the devil himself, Satan. Satan started as a confused and angry person in the beginning. As the story progressed, Satan’s character became stronger and powerful. Toward the middle of the story, Satan acted almost as a political figure; he knew when and what to say to persuade other angels to follow him. Some reader suggests that Satan is the protagonist of the story because he struggled to combat his mistrusts and weaknesses. Nonetheless this goal was evil and Adam and Eve turned out to be the pure heroes at the end of the story while they help begin to fix humankind’s evil fate. There are several reasons why Milton focused so much Satan and gave him all the good lines.
In The Book of Job, one of the main themes is desire, more specifically the desire to know the actuality. Job is a wealthy man living in a land of Uz with his family minding his own business. He is a very religious man and usually strives to do what he believes is morally right. Satan one day challenges God that Job will lose his faith in him if he allows Satan to torture Job. God accepts the challenge and Job greatly suffers. Job at the beginning of the story had no desires or intentions at all, but as his condition gets worse and worse. Job mindset about God and his belief begins to shift. At this point in the story desire starts to play a key role in Job’s life. Desire is shown in Job when he demands answers from God and why God is putting him through all of this. The idea of questioning God terrifies Job but his desire for an answer ultimately overshadows his fear of questioning God, “Here is my desire...
In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan seeks revenge against God and causes the fall of man. He deceives Adam and Eve and gets them to disobey God. God ends up seeming cruel because of the way He punishes Adam and Eve but, He’s not. God could have killed them for disobeying him, instead He’s giving them a second chance with life, its just going to be a harder life. God is just doing what He has to by sending them out of the Garden. He is the high and almighty God, He made Adam and Eve, He made the world, He can do whatever He wants and if you disobey him you will get punished. It’s the same thing with Satan, Satan rebelled, and God had to do what he had to do and that was to send him out of heaven to hell.